David Gelles Infected by the Purple Prose

Two weeks in the most beautiful places on earth with passionate people tasting of salt and smelling of olives has rendered him changed.

"Minoan civilization, once glorious and surreal, flourished on Santorini and many neighboring islands, but suddenly disappeared, perhaps at the devastating hand of a cataclysmic eruption, like the one that rocked Santorini."

He comes back unbearably Romantic.

"At 5 am from a chic club on the banks of the Bosphorus we watched a saffron-colored harvest moon set over Topkapi Palace as dawn broke into the sky behind us, and the first calls to prayer issued from the minarets of nearby mosques."

David, English isn't a romantic enough language -- like Greek, French or Italian -- to be so purple.

"As I descended into the Aegean sea, shafts of light surrounded me and came together at the tip of a cone deep below me, a sparkling beacon, beckoning me deeper."

Judge for yourself in Diving Atlantis and Back on Native Soil.

"But as I dove along the rocky walls of this still-active volcano, the experience was incredible nonetheless. Floating 60 feet below the ocean floor, looking straight up to the rim of a giant caldera, once an eruption for the ages, but now flooded with the sea, I didn’t need Atlantis to feel the magic of this place. It’s bizarre enough just flying through the sea."

Good lord, man. Have you no shame?