The Shire is partly Birmingham: Tolkien said Sarehole Mill and its pond inspired the Mill at Hobbiton, and the wooded Moseley Bog beside it fed the ancient forests of his books. Both lie in the suburbs of Birmingham, England.
The route follows Tolkien from his childhood at Sarehole and Moseley Bog, past Perrott's Folly in Edgbaston, to North Oxford, where he wrote The Hobbit, and the Eagle and Child pub, where the Inklings met. Some links are Tolkien's own words; the Folly is only a suggestion.
Philip Pullman's Jordan College is a fictional Oxford college that borrows from Exeter College, with the Gyptians moored in Jericho and the trilogy's last promise made on a bench in the Oxford Botanic Garden. Film and TV shot Jordan at Christ Church and New College.
The route follows Lyra from her home college to the canal and the garden, with the film and series stand-ins. Jordan itself is invented, so some pins mark real stand-ins.
Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is set in Oxford, at a fictional country house played on screen by Castle Howard, in Venice and at London's Savoy Chapel. It follows Charles Ryder, who is drawn into the family of his friend Sebastian.
This route visits Hertford and Christ Church in Oxford, the Yorkshire house that played Brideshead, the Venice palace used by the 1981 serial, and the Savoy Chapel. Brideshead itself is fictional, so some pins mark filming stand-ins.
Natsume Sōseki's Botchan is set in Matsuyama on Shikoku: its hero lands at the harbour, rides a tiny train into town and bathes daily at Dōgo Onsen.
The route follows the young Tokyo teacher from the harbour and the toy train to the school, the bathhouse and the castle during his short, eventful stay in Matsuyama.
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.
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi, Emil and the children of Bullerbyn trace back to Näs and Sevedstorp near Vimmerby, to the Gibberyd farm that played Katthult, and to Mariannelund, where Emil heads for the doctor.
The route runs from the author's birthplace through the village that served as the model for Bullerbyn to the film farm and the theme park. Katthult and Bullerbyn are story places; the pins mark their real stand-ins.
Selma Lagerlöf's Nils Holgersson flies over Sweden on a goose's back, from the castles of Skåne at Vittskövle and Glimmingehus to the cliffs of Kullaberg, Karlskrona, Öland and Stockholm's Skansen.
The novel takes a tiny boy across all the historical provinces of Sweden. This route follows six real places from its southern chapters to the capital, with the scene the book sets at each. Ottenby is approximate.
Goethe's Faust sends its hero from the student tavern of Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig to the witches' mountain of the Brocken in the Harz, then on to ancient Greece around Farsala, Sparta and Arcadia.
The route follows Mephistopheles' bargain across Faust I and II, from the drunken revelers of Leipzig to the Walpurgis Night on the Brocken and the classical world of Helen of Troy. Leipzig and the Brocken are real places in the play; the Greek stops are stage settings with approximate pins.
Captain Alatriste is set in Madrid, from the Plaza Mayor and the House of the Seven Chimneys to the Prado, where Velázquez's The Surrender of Breda hangs, and from the siege of Breda to Seville. Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novels follow a Spanish sword for hire and his young squire Íñigo Balboa.
The route walks the Madrid of the first two books, follows the army to Breda in the third, and ends in Seville with The King's Gold. Breda and Seville are approximate pins; the Madrid stops can be visited.
Lampedusa's The Leopard is set in Palermo and the fictional Donnafugata, which is really Santa Margherita di Belice; Visconti's 1963 film borrowed Ciminna and Palazzo Gangi for the same scenes.
The route follows the Prince of Salina through the Sicily of 1860: his observatory villa near Palermo, the ruined town palace of the author's family, the country estate at Donnafugata and the great ball. The novel's places are partly invented, so each stop says how closely the pin matches the page.
Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk is set in Prague, in the pub U Kalicha on Na Bojišti, and in Tábor, Putim, České Budějovice and Bruck an der Leitha, on Švejk's way to the front.
The route follows Švejk from his Prague local, by train and on foot through South Bohemia, to the town on the Austria–Hungary border where the regiment is stationed.
George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is set in Barcelona and on the Aragon front in 1937, from Alcubierre and the lines around Huesca to the May Days on La Rambla and Plaça de Catalunya. It is Orwell's account of fighting with the POUM militia, written from his own experience.
The route follows the book in order: the village where rifles are handed out, the siege lines at Huesca, the telephone exchange where the street fighting began, the rooftop on La Rambla and a quiet day in Barbastro.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad family from a repossessed farm near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, along Route 66 through Needles to Weedpatch Camp in California. Tom Joad starts the story at McAlester prison.
This route follows that migration in five stops, from the prison gates to a New Deal camp south of Bakersfield. The Santa Rosa stop is tied to the 1940 film rather than the book.
Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms follows American ambulance lieutenant Frederic Henry from Gorizia and the retreat from Caporetto to the Grand Hotel at Stresa and a mountain house above Montreux. The war, the retreat and the flight over Lake Maggiore are the backbone of the book.
The route follows Frederic's path from the Italian front to Switzerland. Most pins are approximate, since the novel names towns and rivers rather than buildings; the hotel in Stresa is the one exact stop.
Flaubert's Madame Bovary is set in the Normandy countryside around Rouen: Yonville-l'Abbaye is traditionally held to be based on the village of Ry, and the novel's city scenes play out in Rouen, around its cathedral, its opera and its old churches.
The route follows Emma Bovary from the couple's first home at Tostes, through the market town of Yonville, to an evening at the opera and the famous cab ride through Rouen. Several places are approximate, since the novel names few of them as they are today.
Proust's Combray is the village of Illiers, his Balbec is the seaside resort of Cabourg, and his narrator's walks lead through the Champs-Élysées in Paris and on to Venice.
The route follows five places from the novel across its volumes, from the madeleine memory in Combray to a trip to Venice with the narrator's mother. Most pins are approximate, since Proust blends real places into invented ones.
Dan Brown's Origin is set across Spain: Edmond Kirsch's reveal at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, a chase through Gaudí's Casa Milà and Sagrada Família in Barcelona, a finale at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and a royal palace in Madrid.
Robert Langdon and curator Ambra Vidal race to broadcast a dead billionaire's discovery. The route starts at Montserrat Abbey and follows the story through six real places, most of which you can visit.
Dan Brown's Inferno sends Langdon from the Palazzo Vecchio and Baptistery in Florence to St Mark's Basilica in Venice and the Hagia Sophia and Basilica Cistern in Istanbul, in a race to find a plague.
The route visits six real places in story order, from the Vasari Corridor to the cistern of 336 columns.
Shakespeare's Macbeth is set in Scotland, from a heath near Forres and Glamis Castle to Dunsinane Hill. Its thane titles, coronation and a marching wood all belong to real names on the map. The real Macbeth ruled from 1040 to 1057, and the play takes liberties with him.
The route follows the story from the witches' prophecy to the final duel, through Glamis, Cawdor, Scone, the Birnam Oak and Dunsinane. Several places carry the play's names without staging its scenes, and each stop says so.
Inspector Morse is set and filmed in Oxford, from the Randolph Hotel and the Ashmolean Museum to the Bodleian Library and Exeter College, where the detective's final episode was shot.
Colin Dexter's Morse novels became a 1987 to 2000 ITV series, and the prequel Endeavour returned to the same city. This route follows six places tied to the detective, from his student past to his last case.
Zombie Land Saga is set across Saga Prefecture, from a mansion modelled on a real Karatsu building and Saga Castle to the hot springs of Ureshino and the Alpino hall in Karatsu.
In the anime, seven legendary girls from different eras are revived as zombies to form an idol group and revive Saga. This route follows their gigs and haunts, with the real venues behind them. Some places are fictional or only approximate, as noted.
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.
Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev follows a medieval icon painter through the Russia of 1400–1424, and its key scenes were shot around Vladimir and Suzdal, from the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl to the Dormition Cathedral.
The route also visits the Izborsk Fortress, where the Vladimir raid was filmed, plus the Andronikov Monastery in Moscow, where the story starts and ends, and the Trinity Lavra, home of Rublev's most famous icon, which the film shows in its colour epilogue. Some stops are filming spots rather than named story places.
Mimino, Georgiy Daneliya's 1977 comedy about a Georgian helicopter pilot, was filmed in the Tusheti village of Omalo, at the Hotel Rossiya, the Bolshoi Theatre and Butyrka prison in Moscow, and at Tegel airport in West Berlin.
The route follows Valentin Mizandari from his mountain home to Moscow's hotels, courts and airports, and on to the Berlin phone call that connects him to Tel Aviv. Several sites are only stand-ins for the story's places, and the Hotel Rossiya is gone.
