Before wrapping up for the weekend, a small tribute to Patrick Leigh Fermor, perhaps the greatest travel writer of all times, who would have had his birthday today. (1)
All his books are superb, his knowledge of history and elegant use of the English language are simply breathtaking but I never cease to be bewitched by his description of Ada Kaleh, a a fairy tale-like island in the middle of the Danube (2).
Ada Kaleh had been inhabited by the descendants of Sultan Bayazid I’s soldiers, lingering on as a forgotten corner of the Ottoman world until 1970s when it was submerged by Romania’s communist regime to build a large hydro dam. Another magic place destroyed by communism. (3)
A small fragment from 'Ada Kaleh', (Patrick Leigh Fermor, Words of Mercury, John Murray 2003). (4) 
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