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HistoryApproximate

The First Opium War: Canton to Nanjing

Lin Zexu's crackdown on the opium trade in Canton in 1839 set off a war that ended three years later with a treaty signed on a British warship in the Yangtze. The route follows it from the Pearl River to Nanjing. Seven stops cover the confiscation, the destruction of the opium at Humen, the clashes at Chuenpi and Dinghai, the raising of the flag at Hong Kong, the fall of Zhenjiang and the treaty talks at Jinghai Temple. Several places have changed beyond recognition, which the notes mark.

7 locations6/7 visitable

HistorySpeculative

Qin Shi Huang: Capital, Mountain, Wall and Tomb

Qin Shi Huang's China: his capital Xianyang, Mount Tai, where he proclaimed the empire's unity, the Lingqu Canal near Guilin, and his tomb at Mount Li with the Terracotta Army. He unified the warring states in 221 BC; some of what is told about him is legend. This route visits seven places tied to him, from Xianyang to the Terracotta Army. Stops marked as legend or speculative (the elixir quest on Zhifu Island, the lost course of the Qin wall) are kept apart from sites that archaeology has confirmed.

7 locations5/7 visitable

BooksSpeculative

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Red Cliffs, Jingzhou, Chengdu

Oath brothers, a hermit strategist, a bridge held by one man and a battle on the Yangtze: the classic novel turns the fall of the Han dynasty into a saga of loyalty and cunning. This route follows Liu Bei from a peach garden to his deathbed. The novel is fiction built on the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Each stop says what the novel tells, what the record says, and which places are linked to the story only by later tradition, such as the Zhuozhou temple and the disputed Red Cliffs.

7 locations6/7 visitable

HistoryExact

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Their Mexico City

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's Mexico City: the Casa Azul in Coyoacán, where she was born, his murals in the National Palace and their studios in San Ángel. The two painters married in 1929 and made art in the city for decades. The route runs from Frida's Blue House through Rivera's murals, the twin studio houses in San Ángel and the Trotsky house nearby, to the museum pyramid Diego built for his collection.

7 locations6/7 visitable

HistoryApproximate

Pizarro: Tumbes, Cajamarca and Cusco

In November 1532 Francisco Pizarro reached Cajamarca with 110 foot soldiers and 67 cavalry. Within a day he had captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa, and a year later the Spanish entered Cusco, the Inca capital. The route follows Pizarro from his first landfall at Tumbes in 1528 through the first Spanish town in Peru and the Ransom Room in Cajamarca to the Sun Temple in Cusco and, finally, Lima, the city he founded and where he was killed. The conquest is told from the places where it happened; the first two pins are only approximate.

5 locations2/5 visitable

BooksApproximate

Lazarillo de Tormes: Salamanca to Toledo

Lazarillo de Tormes follows a hungry boy serving cruel masters across Spain: the stone bull on Salamanca's Roman bridge, the grapes of Almorox, revenge at Escalona, a squire's empty house in Toledo. It is told in his own sly voice. This route follows his early years: the stone bull, the grapes at Almorox, the revenge at Escalona, the miser priest at Maqueda and the squire's empty house in Toledo. Most places are named only as towns, so most pins are approximate.

6 locations6/6 visitable

MoviesApproximate

The Diamond Arm: Baku as the Soviet Abroad

Gaidai's 1968 comedy The Diamond Arm films Istanbul in Baku's Icheri Sheher and Shirvanshahs' Palace, and its home town in Sochi and Adler. One watermelon rind, one "Damn it!", and the economist wears a smugglers' plaster cast full of jewels. The route follows the film across its filming sites: the old streets and palace of Baku that play Istanbul, then the southern coast and a Moscow wasteland that play the heroes' home town. Only the Baku and Kiselyov Rock stops are pinned to a specific place; the rest are approximate.

6 locations2/6 visitable

HistoryApproximate

Gagarin's Flight: Baikonur to Engels, 1961

In 1961 Yuri Gagarin trained at Moscow's Khodynka Airfield, launched from Baikonur and came down near Engels. Less than two hours in space made the pilot a worldwide celebrity; his capsule is kept in a museum in Korolev City. This route follows Yuri Gagarin from the training ground at Moscow's Khodynka Airfield to the launch pad at Baikonur, the field in the Saratov region where he came down, the Kremlin ceremony and the museum that keeps his capsule. The museum pin marks the Energia company site rather than the museum itself.

5 locations1/5 visitable

Real JourneysApproximate

Afanasy Nikitin: Journey Beyond Three Seas

In 1466 or 1468 a merchant from Tver set out down the Volga to trade around the Caspian Sea. He was robbed on the way, crossed Persia, sailed from Hormuz to India and wrote down what he saw in A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. This route follows him from Tver through Derbent, Hormuz and the coast of India to Bidar, and home to Caffa on the Black Sea. Dates are debated, and most stops are marked by area only because his notes name towns rather than buildings.

7 locations2/7 visitable

BooksFictional

The Captain's Daughter: Orenburg to Moscow

Pushkin's only completed novel follows Pyotr Grinev, a young officer sent to a log-fenced fortress on the Orenburg steppe, where he falls in love with the captain's daughter Masha and crosses paths with Pugachev, the rebel who claims to be Emperor Peter III. The book is a romanticized account of Pugachev's Rebellion of 1773-1774, not a record of it. The route follows the novel from besieged Orenburg through the Belogorsk fortress, Berda, Kazan, Tsarskoye Selo and Moscow. Each stop separates what Pushkin invented from what history records; Belogorsk exists only on the page, with the real fortress of Tatishchevo as its stand-in.

6 locations3/6 visitable

MoviesApproximate

Kingdom of Heaven: Balian's Holy Land and Its Sets

Ridley Scott's 2005 epic follows Balian, a French blacksmith turned Baron of Ibelin, from his village to Messina, Jerusalem, Kerak, the desert defeat at Hattin and the siege that ends the film. Every stop pairs a scene with the place where it was shot, or with the real place the scene stands for. The film was made in Spain and Morocco, not the Holy Land, so the route moves between sets and history. Where the film departs from the record, the stop says so: the historical Balian was a prominent lord of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a French artisan.

8 locations5/8 visitable

GamesSpeculative

Assassin's Creed: The Holy Land of the Third Crusade

Assassin's Creed (2007) recreates the Holy Land of 1191: Masyaf, Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem, with Solomon's Temple and Richard's camp at Arsuf. Altaïr loses his rank after a botched mission and wins it back one target at a time: nine men in three cities, all secretly Templars. The route follows the story from the Temple in Jerusalem to the Assassins' fortress of Masyaf, through Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem, to a duel in King Richard's camp. The game's cities are rebuilt for play, so every pin marks the real place the scene is anchored to.

6 locations2/6 visitable

MythologyApproximate

Labours of Heracles: Six Tasks in the Peloponnese

Heracles' first six labours are set across the Peloponnese: Tiryns, Nemea and its lion, Lerna and its Hydra, Ceryneia, Erymanthos and Elis. He must kill a lion no arrow pierces and a many-headed Hydra, and clean a stable of thirty years' dung. This route follows the first six labours in their traditional order, from the fortress of Tiryns through Nemea, Lerna, Ceryneia, Erymanthos and Elis to Lake Stymphalia. The myth rarely names an exact spot, so most pins mark the place the tale is tied to, not a cave or a lair.

7 locations4/7 visitable

HistoryApproximate

The Great Fire of London: Pudding Lane to Pye Corner

A baker's oven in Pudding Lane, a gale from the east and a city of timber and pitch: in four days in September 1666 the fire destroyed medieval London, including Old St Paul's. Samuel Pepys watched it from the Tower, from the river and from a church tower, and wrote it all down. The route follows the fire from its first spark on Sunday morning to its end on Wednesday, then to the Monument and the Golden Boy that remember it. Where the sources give only an area, such as the refugee camps at Moorfields, the pin marks it loosely.

9 locations9/9 visitable

MoviesApproximate

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Castles of Camelot

When the National Trust withdrew filming permission, Monty Python's Grail quest leaned on Doune Castle in Scotland for Camelot, Castle Anthrax and most other castles, with Kidwelly Castle in South Wales for the opening shot and Bodiam Castle in East Sussex for the Swamp Castle exterior. King Arthur sets out across Britain in AD 932 to find knights and, in the end, the Holy Grail. This route follows the quest in film order through six locations: the castle of the opening shot in Wales, Doune Castle in Scotland standing in for the rest, a moated castle in East Sussex for one establishing shot, a mine, a glen and the island tower that ends the film.

6 locations5/6 visitable

GamesApproximate

Forza Horizon 5: Mexico in Seven Stops

Forza Horizon 5 drops the Horizon Festival into a fictionalised Mexico, on a map 50% larger than Forza Horizon 4's. Creative director Mike Brown calls Mexico almost the whole world in one country: snowy peaks, tropical jungles, epic canyons, beautiful beaches, ancient architecture and modern cities. This route visits seven real places the game recreates, from a sea arch at the tip of Baja to a canyon with a train, and says what the game does at each. The map is a condensed Mexico, so the pins mark the real sites, not their positions in the game.

7 locations6/7 visitable

MoviesApproximate

House of the Dragon: Cornwall to Spain

HBO's Game of Thrones prequel was filmed primarily in the United Kingdom, and its Velaryon world is Cornish: the island seat of Driftmark is a tidal island, and the Stepstones war camp is a cove on the Lizard peninsula. For the capital and the free city of Pentos, the crew went to western and southern Spain. The route follows the story from the Stepstones war (season 1, episode 3) through the Driftmark episodes to King's Landing in season 2. Sources do not name the exact streets used in Cáceres, so that pin marks the old town.

6 locations4/6 visitable

HistoryApproximate

Napoleon's Hundred Days: From Elba to Waterloo

On 26 February 1815 Napoleon slipped away from Elba with some 1,000 men. Within a month he was back in the Tuileries, and by mid-July he had surrendered to the Royal Navy. The route follows him stop by stop: his villa on Elba, the landing at Golfe-Juan, the meeting at Laffrey and the entry into Grenoble on the Route Napoléon, the Tuileries, the farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte at Waterloo, then Malmaison and Île d'Aix, where his journey ended. The pins at Golfe-Juan and Grenoble mark the towns, not exact spots.

9 locations7/9 visitable

MythologySpeculative

King Arthur: From Merlin's Dragons to Avalon

King Arthur's legend has no single home: he is conceived at Tintagel and holds court at Caerleon, Cadbury Castle is claimed as Camelot and Glastonbury is linked to Avalon. The route follows Geoffrey of Monmouth, Malory and others from Merlin's dragons to the sword returned to the water. Every pin marks a real place that tradition has attached to an episode, not a site proven by history, and each stop says where the link is doubted.

9 locations5/9 visitable

MoviesFictional

Tenet: From the Kyiv Opera to Stalsk-12

A CIA officer called the Protagonist joins Tenet, a secret organisation fighting a war across time. Inverted bullets and a Russian oligarch named Sator pull him from a Kyiv opera house to Mumbai, Oslo, the Amalfi Coast and Tallinn, chasing a device sent back from the future. This route follows the film's real locations: Tallinn's Linnahall standing in for the Kyiv opera house, Colaba in Mumbai, the Oslo freeport sequence, the gardens of Villa Cimbrone above Amalfi, the Tallinn streets of the car chase and the California ghost town used for Stalsk-12. The Oslo Freeport and Stalsk-12 are fictional, so their pins mark the real places the film points to.

6 locations4/6 visitable

GamesApproximate

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Chasing the Order in England

Assassin's Creed Valhalla brings the Viking Eivor and their clan to Anglo-Saxon England, where Hytham asks for help ridding the land of the Order of the Ancients. Following tip-offs from an informant who signs himself the "Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ", Eivor hunts Order members from Grantebridge to Jorvik and Wincestre. The route visits the real places behind the game's: Cambridge, where the jarlskona Soma takes back her town; York, the capital of Viking Britain; the docks of Repton, where the Great Heathen Army wintered; Alfred's Winchester; the battle at Chippenham in 878; and Athelney, where the informant's identity is finally revealed. All six can be visited today.

6 locations6/6 visitable

MoviesApproximate

Game of Thrones: King's Landing in Dubrovnik

After a first season in Malta, the show crossed the Adriatic to a walled city. Dubrovnik's two-kilometre ramparts, the fortress above its western gate and its late-medieval streets played King's Landing for everything the effects departments could not invent: the name-day combats, the riot at the gate, Cersei's walk of atonement. Eight stops run in the order the episodes aired — Lovrijenac and the Pile Gate in the second season, the Rector's Palace when Dubrovnik doubled as Qarth, the Red Keep's gardens at Trsteno and the Meereen stand-in at Klis in the third and fourth, and the Jesuit stairs where the fifth-season finale was shot in October 2014. Only the exteriors live here: the Red Keep and the Sept of Baelor were computer-generated.

8 locations8/8 visitable

MoviesApproximate

Call Me by Your Name: From the Perlmans' Villa to the Serio Falls

In the summer of 1983 a seventeen-year-old boy and a twenty-four-year-old American share a house in rural Lombardy: Elio Perlman, who reads too much and plays the piano too well, and Oliver, the graduate student his father hired for the summer. One long, hot, awkward season, and neither of them handles it gracefully. It ends with a telephone call and a boy by a fireplace; it was shot, almost scene by scene, in real places you can still stand in. This route follows the filming from the Perlmans' villa at Moscazzano through Crema's piazza, a Roman villa on Lake Garda and a war memorial at Pandino, out to the meadow at Capralba where Elio makes his move, and then north for the last three days in Bergamo — the country's tallest waterfall, a pensione in the upper town, a drunken night outside Santa Maria Maggiore, and the small station south of Crema that stands in for Clusone. Principal photography ran from 9 May to the end of June 2016, and the villa is a private home, so a few stops are best seen from the street.

9 locations8/9 visitable

MoviesApproximate

Star Wars: Tatooine in Tunisia

In March 1976 a film crew came to southern Tunisia and turned it into another planet. George Lucas had selected Tunisia to provide the desert planet setting for Star Wars, and filming in Tunisia began on March 22, 1976: a troglodyte hotel became the Lars homestead, the salt flats became a moisture farm, and the streets of Ajim on Djerba became the Mos Eisley spaceport. When the prequels called, the crews came back: locations at Onk Jemal in Tozeur, Ksar Ouled Soltane and Ksar Hadada were used for Tatooine scenes in the 1998 shoot, from the Boonta Eve podrace track to the slave quarters where the boy Anakin lived. Abandoned sets for the filming have been left in the desert but can be visited — this route links all eight sites, from the droids' landing dunes to the granary-courtyard slave quarters.

8 locations3/8 visitable