Catalog
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 Trans-Siberian Railway runs 9,289 kilometres from Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station across Krasnoyarsk, Lake Baikal and Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, crossing a record eight time zones. The line was begun in 1891 and finished only when the Amur bridge opened in 1916. This route follows it west to east through five landmarks: the two matching terminal stations, the great Yenisei bridge, the loop line around Baikal and the long Amur crossing.
In 1648 Semyon Dezhnyov sailed from the Kolyma River past Cape Dezhnev and through the Bering Strait, eighty years before Vitus Bering entered the strait in 1728, and ended up wrecked near the mouth of the Anadyr. The route follows the voyage from Srednekolymsk to the cape, the Diomede Islands, the Anadyr mouth and the winter quarters at Anadyrsk. Some details, including the exact route, are debated, so most pins are approximate.
Francis Drake's circumnavigation ran from Plymouth through San Julian, Valparaíso and Callao to California and the Spice Islands of Ternate. The voyage lasted from 1577 to 26 September 1580. This route follows seven stops, from the storm-hit departure at Plymouth to treasure at Callao and a royal welcome on Ternate. Several places are approximate, and the California landing is only traditionally identified.
John Muir's 1867 walk from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico passed Mammoth Cave, the Cumberland Mountains, Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery and Cedar Key. He told it in A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. The route follows the book from Louisville to Florida, then on to Yosemite Valley in 1868. Some stops are general areas rather than exact spots, as marked on each point.
In 1970 Thor Heyerdahl sailed the papyrus boat Ra II from Safi in Morocco to Barbados, with reed from Lake Tana, builders from Lake Titicaca and a finish in Barbados. Today the boat sits in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. The route follows the boat from its materials and builders to the departure, the landfall and the museum. Most stops are approximate: sources name the lakes, the port and the island, not exact docks.
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.
Sir John Franklin's 1845 search for the Northwest Passage began at Stromness in Orkney, passed Disko Bay in Greenland and Beechey Island, and ended off King William Island, where HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were trapped in ice in 1846. No one from the expedition came home. The route follows the ships from Orkney to the Victory Point note, the last message the crew left, then to the two wrecks found in 2014 and 2016. Most Arctic stops are remote or protected, so treat them as map stories rather than places to visit.
A short walk from the Rialto Bridge to Piazza San Marco packs in Shylock's Rialto, a clock tower from a Bond film, the basilica that holds Saint Mark, Galileo's telescope demonstration and Casanova's roof-top escape from the Doge's Palace. Six stops lead from the Rialto to the Doge's Palace, each tied to a story: Shakespeare, Moonraker, the legend of Saint Mark, Galileo, Casanova and A Little Romance. The film links are screen fiction, not history.
Florence's Renaissance is packed into a few streets: the Duomo and Brunelleschi's dome, the Medici palace, Piazza della Signoria, the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio. Each stop here ties one building to a dated event, from a dome competition in 1418 to Michelangelo's David arriving at the Accademia in 1873. The walk follows the buildings in date order, from the cathedral to the Accademia, and every stop can be visited. Dates mark the event at each place, not a single journey.
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 Cuban Revolution runs from the Moncada Barracks in Santiago to a Mexican port, a mangrove beach near Niquero, the Sierra Maestra, an armored train in Santa Clara and the old Presidential Palace in Havana. In December 1956 eighty-two men crowded onto the yacht Granma; only about twelve survived the ambush at Alegría de Pío. Two years later the rebels were in Havana. The route follows that arc in seven stops. Three of the pins are approximate, and two places have no pin.
Oda Nobunaga's rise runs from Kiyosu Castle and the Okehazama battlefield through Gifu, Mount Hiei, Nagashino and Azuchi to Honnō-ji in Kyoto. The seven stops follow his campaigns in order, from a family struggle in Owari to the 1582 day Akechi Mitsuhide turned on him. Several are castle ruins or rebuilt replicas, and the Honnō-ji pin marks the rebuilt temple.
The Easter Rising of April 1916 was fought across central Dublin, from the General Post Office on O'Connell Street to the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen's Green and the canal at Mount Street Bridge. This route follows the week from the muster at Liberty Hall and the seizure of City Hall to the surrender from Moore Street and the executions at Kilmainham Gaol. Several stops can be visited today.
The first transcontinental railroad began at the Sacramento waterfront in 1863, climbed through Dutch Flat and Donner Pass, and ended at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the Golden Spike was driven on 10 May 1869. The route follows the Central Pacific's eastward build from California: the groundbreaking, Judah's Sierra survey, the granite labour of Chinese workers and the final ceremony. Some stops are approximate.
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.
Billy the Kid's story runs through southeastern New Mexico: the street of Lincoln, where he fought in the Lincoln County War and escaped the gallows, the stone hut at Stinking Springs, the plaza at Mesilla, and Fort Sumner, where he was shot in 1881. The route follows Billy from the ambush of Sheriff Brady in April 1878 to his death and burial in July 1881. Lincoln and Fort Sumner can still be visited; some exact spots, such as the saloon and the trial room, are not pinned.
Wyatt Earp's story runs from the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, to the Oriental Saloon, the lot beside Fly's and Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona, and on to the railroad tracks of Tucson. It follows the lawman from his 1878 job as a Dodge City assistant marshal through the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on 26 October 1881 to the killings that followed in 1882. Exact buildings are uncertain for several stops, and those pins are marked approximate.
The California Gold Rush began at Sutter's Mill in Coloma in January 1848 and spread to Sacramento, San Francisco, Placerville and the boomtown of Columbia. The route follows the news from a sawmill tailrace to a crowd in a San Francisco square, then to two mining towns where the rush turned into streets, aqueducts and brick buildings. Most stops can still be visited, though the Placerville pin is only the main street.
Palenque, Tikal, Copán and Chichén Itzá are four great Maya cities, from the jungle of Chiapas to the plains of Yucatán. Their kings built tombs, pyramids and monuments that archaeologists have read and dug out of the forest. This route follows them in time, from Pakal's tomb in 683 to the capture of Copán's king in 738 and on to the pyramid and Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá. Pins at Tikal and Copán mark the whole site.
The Buddha's story, as Buddhist tradition tells it, runs from Lumbini in Nepal, where he was born, through Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Jetavana to Kushinagar, where he died. Each of these places can be visited today. The route follows five stops in life order: birth, enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, the first teaching at Sarnath, the monastery at Savatthi and the parinirvana. The dates are traditional; the accounts come from Buddhist scriptures and legends.
Vincent van Gogh was born in Zundert in the Dutch province of North Brabant and died in Auvers-sur-Oise. In between came Nuenen, Antwerp, the Yellow House in Arles and the asylum at Saint-Rémy. This route follows six places in his life, from the birthplace on the Markt to the attic room at the Auberge Ravoux. Some are gone or only approximate, and each stop says so.
The Medici ruled Florence from Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace, and plotters struck at them in the Duomo in 1478. This route follows the family from Cosimo's cell in 1435 to Vasari's private corridor of 1564. Seven stops, all in the old centre and almost all open to visitors, show how a banking family turned into a ducal court, and how they left offices, tombs and a museum behind.
In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from Quarto near Genoa with 1,089 volunteers, landed at Marsala, won at Calatafimi, took Palermo and Milazzo, and handed southern Italy to King Victor Emanuel II at Teano. This route follows the Expedition of the Thousand through seven places, from the rock where the Redshirts embarked to the handshake that helped make Italy. Several stops are towns rather than precise battle sites, and are marked as approximate.