The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean is a travelogue written by the American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux, first published 1995. It concerns a year-and-a-half long expedition around the shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea from one of Hercules' Pillars (Gibraltar) to the other (Ceuta) undertaken during 1993-94. Theroux recounts his experiences from the many diverse countries that border the shores of the sea, including the war-torn Yugoslavia (this was shortly before the break-up of the former republic), the troubled Levant and the recently liberated Albania.