Catalog
The Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa from Shuri Castle in Naha, and its story can still be walked at Nakijin, Zakimi and Katsuren castles and the Tamaudun royal tombs. The route follows the kingdom from the three-principality era and Shō Hashi's unification in 1429, through a rival lord's fall in 1458, to the royal tombs of 1501. Most of these castle sites are ruins or reconstructions.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is set in Tokyo, but most of it was shot in Los Angeles; Shibuya Crossing is the best-known real Tokyo spot. This route follows Sean Boswell from his Arizona school to the car meets, garages and mountain pass of the film, and shows the Los Angeles locations that stood in for Tokyo, from Hawthorne Plaza to San Gabriel Dam. Several scenes are pinned to the stand-in, not the story setting.
NHK's 2008 drama Atsuhime follows Tenshō-in from Kagoshima and Sakurajima in Satsuma to Edo Castle in Tokyo, where she became wife of the 13th shōgun. Born Okatsu in the Imaizumi branch of the Shimazu clan, she is adopted by Shimazu Nariakira, moves into Tsurumaru Castle and leaves for the shōgun's court in 1853, the year of Perry's Black Ships. The route follows five places from the drama's first half in Satsuma to the Ōoku. The Imaizumi pin and the Kurihama stop are approximate.
The Hagoromo legend, retold in the Noh play Hagoromo, is set at Miho no Matsubara, a pine-lined beach in Shimizu Ward, Shizuoka, with Miho Shrine nearby and Mount Fuji in the distance. A fisherman finds a celestial maiden's feather robe hanging on a pine and will not give it back until she dances. The route follows the tale from the beach and the legendary pine to the maiden's ascent toward Mount Fuji, the shrine that keeps her plumage, and the monument to a French dancer who loved the story.
Lafcadio Hearn's Japan runs from Matsue Castle and Izumo Taisha to Kumamoto, Yaizu and Akama Shrine in Shimonoseki, home of the Kwaidan ghost tale of Hōïchi the Earless. The route follows his years as a teacher and writer: the samurai house in Matsue, a railway station scene from Kokoro, a fishing town he wrote about, and the shrine that keeps Hōïchi's statue. Hearn does not name the Kumamoto station, so that pin is approximate.
The Shinsengumi, the squad of Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō, began in Hino in the Tama region and ended in Hakodate. Their story runs through Mibu-dera and the Ikedaya Inn in Kyoto, the battle of Fushimi, and Kondō's execution in Itabashi. The route follows Kondō Isami and Hijikata Toshizō from a dojo in Hino to the Boshin War. Several stops can still be visited, though some pins mark an area rather than the exact spot.
Onimusha: Warlords is set around Inabayama Castle, today's Gifu Castle in Gifu, after the Battle of Okehazama; Onimusha 3 takes the samurai Samanosuke Akechi to Honnō-ji in Kyoto, then to Paris and Mont-Saint-Michel. Capcom's demon-slaying samurai series borrows real battlefields and castles for its war against Nobunaga Oda and the demonic Genma. This route follows the plots of the first and third games, from Okehazama and Gifu to Kyoto, the Arc de Triomphe and Mont-Saint-Michel. The game versions of Kyoto, Paris and Mont-Saint-Michel are story settings only.
Sōseki's novel Kokoro is set between Kamakura, Zōshigaya Cemetery, Ueno Park, Nogi Shrine and Koishikawa in Tokyo. This route follows the student narrator and his mysterious teacher, "Sensei", through places the book names. Starting at a summer beach in Kamakura, the route visits the cemetery where Sensei brings flowers each month, the cherry trees of Ueno, the Akasaka house of General Nogi, whose death in 1912 changes everything, and Koishikawa, where Sensei's story of K unfolds. Some stops are approximate, since the novel names districts, not addresses.
Points and Lines is set between Tokyo Station and the beach at Kashii in Fukuoka, while Castle of Sand follows a detective from the Kamata rail yard in Tokyo to Akita and Shimane. Seichō Matsumoto's two best-known crime novels turn Japan's railways into the clues. This route follows both stories: the four-minute gap on Tokyo Station's platforms, the Kashii shore, and the stations named Kameda that lead the detective to Kamedake. Pins at Kashii and Kamata are approximate.
Mishima's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is set in Kyoto at Kinkaku-ji, with earlier scenes near Maizuru and Cape Nariu, at Nanzen-ji and on the Sea of Japan coast at Yura. The novel is loosely based on the burning of the Golden Pavilion by a young Buddhist acolyte in 1950. This route follows the narrator Mizoguchi from his childhood on the north coast to the night he sets the temple alight. Three stops are approximate and two are unpinned.
Kawabata's Snow Country is set in the hot spring town of Yuzawa in Niigata, reached through the Shimizu Tunnel on the Joetsu Line. The author never names the town in the novel, but later wrote that the snow country is the Echigo-Yuzawa hot spring. This route follows Shimamura's train ride from the long border tunnel, past the signal stop and Echigo-Yuzawa Station, to the inn where Kawabata stayed, Komako's attic room and the warehouse fire that ends the book.
Urashima Tarō, Japan's fisherman who visits the Dragon Palace, is tied to the Tango Peninsula in Kyoto Prefecture, where Urashima Shrine in Ine keeps his story, and to rival claims in Okinawa, Yokohama and the Kiso Valley. The route follows the tale from its 8th-century Tango roots through the undersea palace to the opened box, then visits the places that say he lived or ended up there. Most links are local legend, and each stop says how firm it is.
Krishna's legend is set across northern and western India: born in Mathura, raised around Gokul, Vrindavan and Govardhan Hill, then his city of Dwarka in Gujarat, the battlefield of Jyotisar and his last place at Bhalka. The seven stops follow the story from birth in a prison cell to his death by a hunter's arrow. Most sites are traditional identifications, so the labels say how firm each pin is.
The Mabinogion, Wales's medieval collection of myths, is set across Narberth in Pembrokeshire, Harlech, Tomen y Mur, Segontium and Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd. Its tales of Rhiannon, Branwen, Lleu and two fighting dragons have all been tied to real hills, forts and castles. This route follows three of the Four Branches and two native tales, from Pembrokeshire to Gwynedd. Several identifications are traditional rather than proven, and each stop says so.
Long Way Down follows Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's 2007 motorbike ride from John o' Groats in Scotland through Silverstone, Tunisia and the pyramids of Giza to Cape Agulhas and Cape Town. The route picks five stops along the 12 May to 4 August 2007 journey, from the Scottish start to the southernmost tip of Africa. Pins at Tunisia and Giza are approximate.
The 1789 mutiny on HMS Bounty began about 30 nautical miles south of Tofua, after five months at Point Venus in Tahiti, and ended on Pitcairn Island, where the ship was burned. Bligh's launch took in Restoration Island and Kupang on Timor. The route follows both halves of the story: Captain Bligh's 41-day open-boat voyage to Timor, and Christian's search for a hiding place. Most stops are remote; the caveat is that the mutiny spot at sea can only be marked by the nearest island.
York has been defended by walls since Roman times, and this walk strings together six places around them: the Multangular Tower, York Minster, Clifford's Tower, Micklegate Bar, the Shambles and Walmgate Bar. Each stop is a moment in the city's story, from a Roman fort built around 71 AD to a siege in 1644.
St Petersburg's history can be walked in an afternoon: from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the city was founded in 1703, past Kazan Cathedral on Nevsky Prospect to Senate Square, Palace Square and the cruiser Aurora on the Neva. Seven stops follow the city from its foundation through the Decembrist revolt of 1825, the assassination of Alexander II, Bloody Sunday in 1905 and the events of October 1917. The stops zigzag across the centre, so the pins are markers rather than a single line.
The Salem witch trials of 1692 began in Salem Village (now Danvers), reached the Witch House and Proctor's Ledge in Salem, and are remembered today at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead and the Salem memorial. More than 200 people were accused, thirty were found guilty and nineteen were hanged. This route follows the story from the Parris household and the Nurse farm to the magistrate's house, the execution site and the 1992 memorial park. The Parsonage stop is approximate and has no map pin.
Russia's national poet, Alexander Pushkin, went from the Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo to exile at Mikhailovskoye, a Moscow wedding, the duel at the Black River in Saint Petersburg and a grave at Svyatogorsky Monastery. The route follows his life, not his fiction. It runs from the schoolboy of 1811 to the funeral of 1837, and ends at the monastery near Pskov where he was buried beside his mother. Where the exact spot of a stop is only approximate, the stop says so.
Gone with the Wind is set in Georgia: Tara lies about five miles outside Jonesboro, and Scarlett O'Hara's Atlanta runs along Peachtree Street. The depot, Five Points and Oakland Cemetery are real Atlanta places the story names. The route follows the novel from the eve of the Civil War through the depot and Five Points in the fall of Atlanta in 1864, and ends at the Margaret Mitchell House, where the book was written.
Veniamin Kaverin's The Two Captains is set in Pskov (the book's "Ensk"), Moscow, Leningrad and the Arctic, following Sanya, a mute boy who grows into an Arctic pilot and sets out to prove what happened to a lost polar expedition. The route follows the book from a flooded yard in Pskov to the orphanages of Moscow, the Leningrad blockade, the archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya and Polyarny's Square of Two Captains. Moscow, Leningrad and Severnaya Zemlya are city- or region-level pins, since the book names no exact addresses there.
Hans Christian Andersen's Denmark runs from a cobbler's house in Odense to the Royal Danish Theatre, the colourful quay of Nyhavn and the bronze Little Mermaid on Copenhagen's Langelinie. The route follows the shoemaker's son who left Odense at 14 to become an actor; a theatre colleague told him he was a poet instead. Two Odense houses, three Copenhagen landmarks and a ride at Tivoli show where his life and his stories touch the map. The birthplace house is traditionally identified, not proven.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin is set on the Greek island of Cephalonia (Kefalonia) in the Second World War, and the 2001 film shot it around Sami, Antisamos Beach and Myrtos Beach. The route follows the film's scenes from the opening feast at a ruined monastery to the seafront built as Argostoli, the Italian camp, the mine on the beach, a partisan hideout and the mountain ambush. Much of the film was made on sets that were dismantled afterwards, so some stops are approximate.