Booklust meets Wanderlust

Booklust meets Wanderlust

BY TAYLOR NOEL

Lao Tzu once wrote, “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” I, for one, am inclined to disagree with the great philosopher. A great traveler, in my good opinion, sees all there is to see and is immensely changed by the wonder of it. How could a good traveler not be changed – and not feel empowered to write – by sitting at a café in which Ernest Hemingway once wrote? How does one not feel insignificant and small when standing in Trinity College, looking at an illuminated manuscript of the Gospel? How can a person not feel the magic of the world when standing in King’s Cross Station at Platform 9 ¾ ? I digress. To prove my point, join me on an excursion — a literary excursion across Europe to visit some of the most prominent and celebrated literary landmarks.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA ORMOND

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ENGLAND It just makes sense to start this literary vacation in one of the greatest literary capitals of the world.

England — the land of William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, George Orwell, J. K. Rowling, Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll — has a deep history of producing literary masterpieces.

For the purposes of this trip, we are going to visit two of England’s finest cities: Oxford and London.

Oxford boasts such literary giants

as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Charles Dickens. Begin your tour of Oxford at Christ Church, one of the city’s grandest colleges, on St. Aldate’s Street. Alice in Wonderland fans might know that the story derived from a real-life friendship between author Lewis Carroll and the children of the Dean of Christ Church. Carroll especially befriended the dean’s daughter Alice. Alice’s adventures in the famous book stem from a picnic adventure that she and Lewis shared while he told her the fantastic

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stories he later wrote down.

Leaving the church, venture to Brewer Street to see Pembroke College, where J.R.R. Tolkien resided as a professor from 1925 to 1945. After visiting the picturesque college, head over to The Eagle and Child pub.

This is the pub that catered to the literary group known as The Inklings, which included members C. S. Lewis and Tolkien. Just down the road from the famous café is Wolvercote Cemetery, Tolkien’s burial place.

After paying your respects to the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series, pay respects to a place of inspiration for J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. The Bodleian Library is known as being the muse of the Hogwarts Library because of its unusual gargoyles and large wooden bookshelves and study desks.

The entrance to the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin is another place that spurred literary greatness. Across from the entrance is an intricately carved wooden door with a lion in the center that inspired The Chronicles of Narnia

by C. S. Lewis. Down the road and across from Magdalen College are the Botanic Gardens that Phillip Pullman used to create his trilogy beginning with The Golden Compass.

If you aren’t satiated by these astounding landmarks, spend the night at the Old Parsonage Hotel where Oscar Wilde was rumored to lodge and jump on a train for more sights in London.

Start with Westminster Abbey.

There is so much to see in this famous building, but be sure to visit

the Poets’ Corner. In this area, you will see sculptures, tablets and signs that collectively form a shrine to the literary greats of England. Chaucer, Browning, Dickens, Hardy and Tennyson are all buried here, but Byron, Shakespeare, Austen, Blake, the Brontë sisters and George Eliot are glorified by memorials. Jane Austen fans might want to take a quick trip out of London to visit the Jane Austen museum in Hampshire.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes should tour the Sherlock Holmes museum in London. All the literarily inclined should visit The British Library, which is home to the Magna Carta as well as original manuscripts by Austen, the Brontës, Lewis Carroll, Angela Carter and James Joyce.

While in the area, admire the Bloomsbury neighborhood made famous by Virginia Woolf when she

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published T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at Hogarth Press. On the way to Bloomsbury from the British Library, stop at 48 Doughty St. for a glance at the home of Charles Dickens. It was in this home, now turned museum, that Dickens wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers.

If you are in need of a new friend, go to London’s oldest bookstore, Hatchards, or the famous Daunt Books and take your pick of hundreds of amazing books. To close out a cultured day, dedicate an evening in London to watching a play at The Globe Theater, Shakespeare’s second home. And don’t forget to visit Platform 9 ¾ in Kings Cross Station. Yes, it is really is there – well, at least the muggle version of the magical Hogwarts entrance is.

If you aren’t a poor twenty-

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something, you may want to take a side trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, while you are in the vicinity.

SCOTLAND Perhaps take a train from King’s Cross Railway Station in London — be sure to stop by Platform 9 ¾ — to Edinburgh, Scotland, and visit The Elephant House, the café in which J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Also of note is The Writers’ Museum containing Robert Burns’ writing desk. Dan Brown fans will surely stop by Rosslyn Chapel, which was featured in The Da Vinci Code. Holyrood Park, the setting of David Nicholls’s One Day is also in Edinburgh. It might be nice to stop by renowned bookstore Edinburgh Books to buy a book to read before meandering through the park.

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If you are a thorough traveler, an exorbitant traveler or simply a diehard fan of James Joyce, you may even consider extending your trip to Dublin, Ireland.

IRELAND Dublin has been awarded the title of a UNESCO City of Literature. James Joyce groupies

should tour his museum, The James Joyce Centre. Grab a drink at Davy Byrnes, the pub that Joyce used as a backdrop for his masterpiece, Ulysses. Wander in awe through the library at Trinity College and be sure to gawk at the Book of Kells. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral is where Jonathan Swift lived while he wrote Gulliver’s Travels. The Dublin

Writers Museum holds a first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as many other rare literary artifacts. After restocking your supply of reading matter at The Winding Stair, a quaint bookshop, catch a plane to Paris to advance to another literary destination.

FRANCE Baudelaire, Zola, Rimbaud, Proust, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald, Joyce and Beckett – for centuries Paris has nurtured famous and talented writers, some native by birth and others who moved to find their home. Hemingway wrote, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.” There are plenty of literary landmarks upon which to feast your eyes in Paris.

Shakespeare and Company is arguably the most famous bookstore in Europe. Founded

by George Whitman in 1951, this bookstore was frequented by luminaries like Hemingway, Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Speaking of Stein, you can visit her home on 27 rue des Fleurus. Maison Victor Hugo, the former home of Victor Hugo, is another home you can tour while in Paris. Fans of George Sand can see her home at the Musée de la Vie Romantique.

Take a break from absorbing the power that is literary history and grab a coffee at Café de la Mairie, where Hemingway penned The Sun Also Rises. Les Deux Magots is another famous café in which James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Picasso and Hemingway shamelessly drank to excess.

For accommodations, stay in Hotel Le Pavillon des Lettres. Each of the 26 rooms is decorated in accordance to its assigned letter of the alphabet that represents a

famous writer. Pay your respects to Oscar Wilde by visiting his tomb in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery. The American Library in Paris is the largest English-language lending library in Europe. It was founded in 1920 using leftover books that had been sent “over there” for soldiers who were fighting in the trenches during World War I. There is so much to see in Paris and it can be overwhelming at times.

If you find yourself feeling this way, leisurely stroll along the Seine and leaf through the used book vendors that line the river.

Read a book in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Take leave of this bustling city and buy a ticket to Amsterdam for a change of pace, scenery and literature.

NETHERLANDS Perhaps the most famous work of literature from Amsterdam is Anne Frank’s diary. You can visit her house, now called the Anne Frank Museum, and see the attic her family lived in while hiding from the Nazis. The house and attic remain as they were during the Holocaust.

Dine in the De Filosoof Hotel and reminisce about the first time you read John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Go to The Rijksmuseum and seek out paintings by Vermeer to compare with the book about the painter, Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. If you are feeling ambitious, take a train to The Hague and see the painting for itself. For something a bit less heavy, visit the tree house, the ABC Treehouse, that is. It’s an amazing bookstore decorated like a treehouse with bookshelves winding up the tree trunk.

Anyone up for a quick detour to Stockholm?

SWEDEN The Millennium Tour at the Stockholm City Museum will take visitors on a tour of all the places referenced in Steig Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There is also a statue of Pippi Longstocking’s creator, Astrid Lindgren, in Tegnérlunden Park. Stockholm also claims Henning Mankell, a widely read Swedish crime author.

I did say quick detour, right? On to Prague!

CZECH REPUBLIC Franz Kafka is Prague’s literary claim to fame. An entire museum in this charming Eastern European city details the life of this literary icon.

Café Slavia is the famous spot at which poets, writers and intellectuals

would gather for conversation.

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote Two Stories of Prague in this café. U Zlatého tygra, one of Prague’s most famous pubs, is where Czech author Bohumil Hrabal was first introduced to President Bill Clinton.

After you’ve had a drink or two at the pubs, visit The Globe Bookstore and Café, Prague’s first Englishlanguage bookstore, and buy a few books while you sober up.

Franz Kafka once wrote, “Paths are made by walking.” Walking through the literary sights of Europe creates a path of wonder, of awe and of appreciation for all that literature has to offer.

David Mitchell wrote “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” In addition to walking a new path to literature, I hope that all you weary travelers are able to find something of yourselves, something that mirrors your bookish personas along the way.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SARAH KEARNEY

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