Certain special places move us at a profound level - with a kind of inner beauty that puts us in direct touch with the spirit. It might be a temple, a church, a commemorative monument, a wayside shrine or a landscape feature that is saturated in the ambience of ancient sacred traditions. Such places are worth taking the trouble to visit. They add meaning to our lives, awakening a sense of awe, beauty or tranquillity. From the prehistoric megaliths of Carnac in Brittany to the Buddhist temple-complex of Borobodur in Java, from the giant medicine wheel at Bighorn, Wyoming in the USA to the Confucian Temple of Heaven in Beijing, this book guides the reader on a journey around a hand-picked selection of 100 of the world's most spiritually uplifting sites. Accompanying the superb photographs are evocative descriptions of each place, many of them from esteemed writers who share with us their personal responses in their inimitable style. For anyone who wishes to seek out some of these places for themselves, there is a helpful gazetteer at the back of the book giving key facts for visitors. By immersing ourselves in those special places where landscape, art and spirit meet in a radiant intersection, we enlarge our perspective on life. This book gives us the inspiration and knowledge to do so. FOREWORD BY: Pico Iyer, a travel writer of whom the New Yorker said that 'As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed.' CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE: Mark Tully * Jan Morris * Michael Ondaatje * Alexander McCall Smith * Andrew Motion * Joseph Marshall III
