Through the iron grate in front of the tiny window, the pale moonlit sky shimmered in. In the dim, hot cell, mosquitoes buzzed silently. The bugs of Tiberias, on the other hand, are even mentioned in travel guides. Yet every moment I tell myself: I am in Tiberias! This night was one of the happiest in my entire life. In the colorful, poetic travel images of "The Temple of the Sun," Ivan Bunin conjures the magic of places and the fascination of being on the move in the East. The descriptions, both sensual and precise, are interwoven with images from mythical and real pasts, from the Bible, the Quran, and poetry. Further stories from the years 1897-1924 depict Bunin on a cargo ship journey through the Suez Canal, in the Glarus Alps, in temple complexes in Ceylon, at the altars of Baalbek, and in Ukraine.