Great Escapes

Ryland Peters & Small. Very Good/Very Good. 2000. Hard Cover. 4to 1841721069 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Cream cloth with bright silver titling on spine. Illustrated end papers.Colour Photographs. 142 pages clean and tight. From Roman emperors in their country villas to Europe's ruling classes with their hunting lodges and rural estates, people have always sought to escape the mundane realities of life. In the America of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, industrial tycoons headed for the mountains, while in eighteenth-century Europe, perhaps the most extravagant escape was that of Queen Marie-Antoinette, whose Petit Hameau at Versailles enabled her to play at being a milkmaid. In modern times, a fortunate few have managed to achieve a similar state of bliss by retreating to homes in some of the world's most beautiful locations. Here, in mountains, hills, woods and waterscapes, these Lucky people have found rest and relaxation - somewhere to restore their spirits and recharge their batteries. Great Escapes celebrates each glorious hideaway in turn, be it a tiny fisherman's cottage on the Moroccan coast, a chalet in the Swiss Alps, a secluded Welsh farmhouse, or a concrete and glass water tower in a wooded copse. In every case the result is idiosyncratic - a dazzling combination of environment and the proprietor's personality. These are homes whose atmosphere will haunt you long after you have closed the pages of the book. .