Catalog
K-On! never names its setting, but its anime borrows from real places: Toyosato's Vories school buildings in Shiga, the Eizan railway stations of Kyoto, and a cafe in London's Earl's Court. The route follows the light music club from its high school through Kyoto's commuter stations and training-camp trains to the graduation trip in London. Some links are fan identifications, and Kyoto Animation denies the school one.
Lucky Star is set in Saitama, north of Tokyo, and its anime borrows real places: Washinomiya Shrine in Kuki, Kasukabe Station, the Gongendo embankment in Satte and Akihabara. The route follows the four high-school girls from their neighbourhoods to the shrine where fans began their pilgrimages in 2007, then on to Akihabara and Tokyo Big Sight. The anime changes some names, so several pins mark a model, not an exact scene.
The Pokrovsky Gate (1982) is set in 1950s Moscow near the Boulevard Ring, and its real locations include a house on Nashchokinsky Lane, Patriarch Ponds, the Hermitage Garden and a Stalinist high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. Mikhail Kozakov's film, made for television by Mosfilm, follows a student, Kostik, and his neighbours in a communal flat. The six stops run from the house to the rink, the bandshell and the hospital. The flat's interior was built in a Mosfilm pavilion, so only the exteriors are real.
Kin-dza-dza! (1986) begins on New Arbat in Moscow and throws two Soviet men into a sandy desert that is really the Karakum near Balkanabat, Turkmenistan. Georgiy Daneliya's cult comedy then plays out on the planet Pluke, which was built from desert, a metro station and studio sets. The route follows the plot through five real places: the Moscow avenue where the teleporter appears, the Karakum sands, Polyanka metro station, the Army Theatre and Mosfilm. The Pluke locations are approximate or studio stand-ins.
Drive My Car is set in Hiroshima, where a theatre director is driven in his red Saab, and was filmed at Peace Memorial Park, the Naka incineration plant, the port of Mitarai and Akabira in Hokkaido. The route follows the film's Hiroshima stay, from the festival venue and the park rehearsal to Misaki's favourite spot and the island town where Yusuke lives, then north to Hokkaido for the climax. Mitarai and Akabira are pinned at town level.
XO, Kitty, the spin-off of the To All the Boys films, is set at a fictional Seoul school but filmed at real places: Incheon International Airport, Kaywon University of Art and Design, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Hwaseong Fortress's Seojangdae. The route follows Kitty's first season from landing at the airport to the end-of-term talent show, taking in a hotel exterior at State Tower Namsan, Nodeul Island on the Han River and the Independence Hall of Korea in Cheonan. The school itself is fictional, and its interiors were shot at other sites around Seoul.
The fictional seaside village of Gongjin in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is Pohang, South Korea: Cheongha Market, the village of Cheongjin-ri, Sabang Memorial Park and the Seokbyeong-ri lighthouse. Seoul dentist Yoon Hye-jin opens a clinic in Gongjin and falls for Chief Hong. The route follows the market, clinic, boat and lighthouse, then makes one side trip to a museum in Yangju. Two pins mark villages, not exact buildings.
Itaewon Class is set in Seoul's Itaewon, where ex-convict Park Sae-ro-yi opens the DanBam bar, and its real filming spots include SEOUL BAM, the Noksapyeong Overpass and Namsan Park. The route follows six places where scenes of the 2020 series were shot, from the guesthouse where the leads first meet to the graffiti wall where they take pictures at the end. Some pins mark only a street, as noted at each stop.
Winter Sonata, the 2002 Korean drama that started the second wave of the Korean Wave, was filmed primarily on Nami Island in Chuncheon, with more scenes at Yongpyong Resort and on the Oedo garden island. Its tale of a first love lost to amnesia sends you to a lakeside city and a snowy ski slope. The route follows Joon-sang and Yoo-jin from their school days in Chuncheon through Nami Island, Jungdo and Chuam Beach, then ten years on to Yongpyong and the finale at Oedo. Two stops are unpinned: the sources name them without an exact spot.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is set between London, the Swiss Alps and Punjab, and was filmed in Gstaad, Saanen, Zweisimmen and near Gurgaon. Raj and Simran meet on a backpacking trip across Europe and fall in love before her arranged marriage. The route follows the story from Trafalgar Square and King's Cross to the Swiss stations and the Gstaad promenade, then to the mustard fields outside Gurgaon and the final platform at Apta. The Punjab scenes were filmed elsewhere in India, which the stops say plainly.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara follows three friends on a Spanish road trip, from the Costa Brava and La Tomatina in Buñol to Seville, Alájar and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Each friend picks one adventure sport that all three must complete. The route follows the story's chapters, with notes on what was filmed where. Some pins mark a region or town rather than an exact set.
Good Bye, Lenin! is set in East Berlin and shot largely on Karl-Marx-Allee and around Alexanderplatz, where Alex hides the fall of East Germany from his coma-waking mother. Its famous flying Lenin statue was filmed on the avenue. The route follows the plot through five places: the Kerners' flat on Berolinastraße, Alexanderplatz, the former Coca-Cola headquarters in Lichterfelde, Karl-Marx-Allee and the dacha in Finsterwalde. The flat's interiors were studio sets, so that pin is approximate.
Run Lola Run is set and filmed in Berlin: a U-Bahn station, the bank at Bebelplatz, the Oberbaum Bridge and a casino in Schöneberg's town hall. Lola has 20 minutes to find 100,000 marks and save Manni, and the film replays them three times. This route follows the story through the real places where those scenes were shot, from the platform where the money is lost to the casino table where number 20 comes up twice. The film's own geography is loose, so the stops are filming sites rather than a running route.
Netflix's Lupin is set across Paris, from the Louvre and the Pont des Arts to Place Vendôme, with a Normandy detour to the cliffs of Étretat. Assane Diop, a modern gentleman thief inspired by Arsène Lupin, uses real landmarks as his stage. The route follows six filming locations: the Louvre, the Musée Nissim de Camondo, the Pont des Arts, the Luxembourg Gardens, Étretat and Place Vendôme. Exact spots in Étretat are not named by the sources.
The village of Giancaldo in Cinema Paradiso was filmed mostly in Palazzo Adriano, Sicily: the square, the church that became the cinema and the houses of Totò and Alfredo are all real. The farewell scene was shot at Lascari-Gratteri station. The route follows Salvatore from his boyhood home to the piazza, the church-cinema and the station where he leaves, then back to Alfredo's house thirty years later. The cinema facade was temporary, and the church interior stands in for the cinema.
Fellini's film La Dolce Vita follows the journalist Marcello from Saint Peter's Square to the Baths of Caracalla, the Trevi Fountain and the Via Veneto, ending on a beach at Passo Oscuro. The route follows Marcello's episodes in film order, from the helicopter prologue to the dawn on the beach. Much of the film was shot in studio sets, so the route notes where a real place stood in for a set, or the reverse.
Inspector Montalbano is set in the fictional town of Vigàta, based on Camilleri's native Porto Empedocle, but the series is largely filmed in the province of Ragusa: Scicli's town hall, the beach at Punta Secca, the ruined Fornace Penna and Ragusa Ibla. This route follows six filming locations, from Montalbano's offices and home to Donnafugata Castle and the Guerrieri Viaduct in Modica. Camilleri set his books in a fictionalised province of Agrigento, so these are screen stand-ins, not the novels' own places.
Sally Rooney's Normal People is set in County Sligo and at Trinity College Dublin, but the television series was shot in a school in Clonsilla, the pubs of Tubbercurry, Trinity itself, a villa in Lazio and a frozen coast at Luleå. The route follows Marianne and Connell from their last school days to university and abroad. Several stops are stand-ins for places the story names, and each says so.
Letters to Juliet (2010) is set in Verona and the countryside around Siena: Juliet's House and the Ponte Scaligero in Verona, Villa Arvedi near Grezzana, and Piazza del Campo in Siena. Sophie, an American on a pre-honeymoon, answers a 1957 letter left for Juliet and sets off to find Claire's lost love. This route follows the film from the Verona courtyard where the letters are left to the squares of Siena, using the real filming locations. Some scenes were built for the film, such as the wall of letters.
Under the Tuscan Sun follows Frances, a San Francisco writer, who buys a run-down villa near Cortona. It was shot in Florence, Cortona, Rome, Positano and Montepulciano. The route runs from the rain at Florence Cathedral through Cortona's square and cinema, a trip to Rome and Positano, and a wedding near Montepulciano. Places are film locations, and the villa is a stand-in for the real Bramasole.
Merchant Ivory's 1985 film of Forster's novel is set in Florence and Surrey and was shot in the Piazza della Signoria, around Fiesole, at Emmetts Garden in Kent and at 18 Stafford Terrace in London. The route follows Lucy Honeychurch from a Florentine pensione without a view, through a stabbing and a kiss in a poppy field, to an engagement in England that cannot last. The film was shot in ten weeks: four in Italy and six in England.
The Italian Job (1969) is set in Turin, with the Great St Bernard Pass, Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin and the Nivolet Pass among its real filming places. The story is a gold heist in traffic-jammed Turin. This route follows it from the Alps through London and Dublin to the Museo Egizio, Lingotto and the final bus on a mountain road. Some scenes were filmed far from where the story puts them.
Edgar Wright's Cornetto films were shot on location: Shaun of the Dead in Crouch End, North Finchley and a New Cross pub, Hot Fuzz in Wells and Mill Hill, and The World's End in Letchworth Garden City. This route follows the three films in release order, from a zombie-struck North London to a Somerset village that hides murderers and a Hertfordshire pub crawl where the locals turn out to be androids. The stops mix filming locations with the scenes shot there.
Braveheart's Scotland is partly the real thing and partly Ireland: Wallace's village of Lanark was built in Glen Nevis, but York is Trim Castle, Stirling Bridge was staged on the Curragh and Longshanks' court is Bective Abbey. The route follows seven filming locations in the order of the story, from the Highland glen to the Irish fields, lakes and ruins that stood in for the battles and castles. Most of the shoot moved to Ireland at short notice, so the film's map is split between two countries.