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Places from books you wish you could visit

82 replies

antimatter · 14/05/2015 18:29

I saw this tweet from goodreads and thought I would like to visit several non-fictional places (I hardly read fantasy).

I would sit next to Theo and ride across the country from Las Vegas to NY in Goldfinch.

Visit 1930s Moscow as described in Master and Margherita by Bulghakov.

Prague of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Botanical garden where Paulette grew in Kolkatta as described in Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.

Horse stables somewhere in East London where Henri Lachapelle was teaching his granddaughter dressage in Horse Rider by Jojo Moyes.

And many many more!
Share yours here please.

OP posts:
Magmatic80 · 15/05/2015 14:35

PEI was fantastic. I went alone in September and it was brilliant. I wrote on here before about it. I will copy paste as I'm meant to be working....

I've been to PEI. I went to the 'theme park' and marilla took me in her minivan to a burger bar for lunch because it was the end of the season and the lunch place on site was closed. I went to the actual house, the haunted wood and lovers lane. I saw herons on the lake of shining water. I went to LM Montgomery's grave and the nearby post office/museum of her life. I had my picture taken in a straw hat with red braids and a pinafore dress.

I cannot recommend it enough. Charlottetown airport is basically one room. Every single person you encounter on the whole island says hello. Charlottetown itself is totally clapboard buildings. The soil really is red.

I'm welling up now remembering it all. It was wonderful. You worry that places won't be like in the book, but PEI was everything you'd hope.

Magmatic80 · 15/05/2015 14:35

Sorry, I mean it was A September when I went, not last September. It was 6 years ago.

NetballHoop · 15/05/2015 14:40

Corfu as it was in the days of Gerald Durrell

Dreamiesrcatopium · 15/05/2015 14:44

I'm reading "Us" by David Nicholls at the minute. I really want to go inter railing across Europe..

WeeMadArthur · 15/05/2015 14:47

The island that Pi and Richard Parker visited and were nearly eaten by in Life of Pi.

Ankh-Morpork, Lancre, anywhere on the Discworld.

Darrowby/Thirsk in James Herriots time.

Lambbone · 15/05/2015 15:48

I want to indulge in a bit of property porn, and have a look at Woods House after Jason and Irene had done it up, having bought it from the Pinhoes.

I wouldn't mind a shufti round Chrestomanci Castle too.

tulipbulbs · 15/05/2015 16:32

Always wanted to be in Heidi's grandfathers' barn, looking out the window at the snow covered mountains. Wouldn't have minded the secret garden either.

I'd love to be in the tudor court of Wolf hall and see Ann Boleyn in action.
I think my brother was in the house on which Manderly is based.

AliceLidl · 16/05/2015 22:29

Cannes as it is in F Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. I want to sit on the pray mat beach with the characters and watch them.

Westeros. I want to see the Wall.

The Orient Express as Agatha Christie wrote it. And any of her more exotic locations actually. And the Italy that Tom Ripley went to.

I want to climb Stephen King's Dark Tower, and pretty much take Roland's whole journey towards it. His Mid-world, his End-world, his territories.

Finland, as Tove Jansson writes about it. I want to go to her Summer Island and see the world in her Winter Book.

The New York that Lenore Doolan lives in.

The college that Jerusha Abbott attends.

Brazzaville Beach when Hope Clearwater lived on it.

Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights world. I want a Daemon.

Probably a hundred other places as well if I think about it.

Sgtmajormummy · 16/05/2015 22:36

Botswana. I want to drink redbush tea with gentle people and feel the Sahara break my heart...

Facelikeafriendlyapple · 16/05/2015 22:39

Ankh-Morpork. It's the only place I could be bothered to do a city break to these days.

Sgtmajormummy · 16/05/2015 22:42

It's the Kalahari, isn't it? Oops.

HeadOfBetter · 16/05/2015 22:44

Rivendell, though the elves would really piss me off after a while.
Hogwarts.
Diagon Alley.
The Burrow
The Shire
Granny Weatherwax's cottage

EBearhug · 16/05/2015 22:57

A lot of my travel choices are governed by either places I've read about in books (art galleries also tend to feature in the decision-making process.) I think there are worse ways of choosing travel destinations.

I have been to Kynance Cove because of Rosemary Manning's Green Dragon books.

I went to Amsterdam partly because of Anne Frank's House (also the Rijksmuseum and Keukenhof.)

I went to the Snowy Mountains in Australia because of Elyne Mitchell's Silver Brumby books. I didn't see a silver brumby, but I did see wild brumbies of other colours.

And I grew up in the heart of Hardy Country, so that doesn't really count.

I once insisted we went to the Chartists' Cave in south Wales, after reading Alexander Cordell. It was a very foggy day.

Another family outing was to Rye, because of EF Benson.

Places I haven't been, but want to:
PEI, like several others - I've been as far as getting tourist brochures for there.

Also some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites, particularly Rocky Ridge Farm (which aren't actually in the books.)

And Bremen, because I want to see the statue of the musicians of Bremen.

I'd quite like to visit Ankh Morpork, too.

SecretSpi · 18/05/2015 18:51

To Pollyanna and LauraChant - Green Knowe is based on Hemingford Grey near Huntingdon. I visited there a few years ago when I was reading the books to my son and it was magical! He even got to sit on Tolly's rocking horse. I think you need to call them first to make an appointment, but it was well worth it, and to hear all the stories about Lucy Boston's life. She was quite a character.

I would like to accompany Patrick Leigh Fermor on his trek across Europe in the early 1930s, as described in "A Time of Gifts" etc.

propelusagain · 18/05/2015 18:52

Hundred Acre wood.
Seems a nice carefree place.

PestoSwimissimos · 18/05/2015 21:13

Following on from the Mary Plain thread, I would love to s'visit the bear pits in Berne Grin

LauraChant · 19/05/2015 09:20

SecretSpi My son would love that (as would I). Are there topiary animals in the garden and St Christopher?

mummytime · 19/05/2015 10:41

My youngest DD is desperate to go to Wisconsin and other Laura Ingalls Wilder sites (I'd happily go too).
I'd love to visit PEI.
I also want to go to Botswana.
I've done the Chalet school Tyrol, but it would have been nice if it had been on the scale described in the books (she shrunk the lake).
I'd quite like to visit Famous Five type places, with a smugglers tunnel under the sea. In fact a lot of low brow children's books have great locations with castles and secret tunnels.
Faraway Tree, Narnia, Discworld, Russia before the Revolution, St Mary Mead would all be fun.

SecretSpi · 20/05/2015 18:59

LauraChant - there were definitely topiary animals. Have a look here:
www.greenknowe.co.uk

It's a magical place!

MonoNoAware · 22/05/2015 19:33

Lots of these, plus:

Gruhuken (Dark Matter) - but not for long and most definitely not alone!

The Mars habitat built by the protagonist of a not very well known book called The Martian by Andy Weir

I'd also quite like to visit Divergent headquarters...

MonoNoAware · 22/05/2015 19:36

Dauntless Headquarters Blush

AutumnFades · 22/05/2015 19:40

I've been to 221b Baker Street and the Hundred Acre Wood.
I want to go to Mythologia

ThatsNotEvenAWord · 22/05/2015 20:24

Rivendell and the Shire Smile

zingally · 29/05/2015 14:37

Castle Leoch and the standing stones at Craig nu Duun. From the book 'Cross Stitch' by Diana Gabaldon, set in the Scottish Highlands.

Both fictional, but there are real-life alternatives. :)

ScrambledEggAndToast · 29/05/2015 18:10

Little House on the Prairie

Mallory Towers

Sweet Valley High (shameful I know)

Any one of the Famous Five Adventures