The Alchemist: From Andalusia to the Pyramids

Everything begins with a dream. Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd, beds down in a ruined church and dreams of a child who tells him that a treasure waits at the Egyptian pyramids. The dream comes twice, and it will not leave him alone. The book never says where the church stands, so this stop has no pin on the map. Keep it in mind all the same: the story will bring Santiago back to this spot at the very end.

Location precision: The novel names no village for the church, so the stop is left off the map.

Tarifa sits at the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, facing Morocco across the strait. Santiago comes here to have his twice-repeated dream interpreted, and a fortune-teller reads it as a prophecy of treasure at the Egyptian pyramids, and she asks for a tenth of it. In the market he then meets Melchizedek, the old king of Salem, who tells him to sell his sheep and follow his Personal Legend, and presses the stones Urim and Thummim on him.

Location precision: The novel names only the town and its marketplace; the pin marks the main gate into the old town.

Visitor guidance: Ferries to Tangier leave from Tarifa's ferry port and take about 40 minutes.

Early in Tangier, a man who claims he can take Santiago to the pyramids instead robs him of every coin from the sale of his sheep. Penniless in a strange city, the boy takes a job with a crystal merchant to earn enough to carry on. The merchant is a kind and cautious man who understands the boy's quest. The Petit Socco, where the pin sits, has long been the focal point of the old medina, and ferries still run from Tangier across the strait to Tarifa.

Location precision: The novel doesn't say where in the city the theft or the shop is; the pin marks the Petit Socco, the focal point of the old medina.

Visitor guidance: Several ferries a day connect Tangier's ferry terminal with Tarifa.

Crossing the Sahara with a caravan, Santiago meets an Englishman who is hunting for an alchemist able to turn any metal into gold, and who lends him his books on the way. The caravan comes to rest at the Faiyum Oasis, the setting for about a quarter of the novel. Here Santiago falls in love with Fatima and proposes, but she will marry him only after he finishes his journey. Here too he meets the alchemist, who dresses in black and hunts with a falcon.

Location precision: The novel doesn't place its well or camp within the oasis; the pin marks the oasis as a whole.

With the alchemist as his teacher, Santiago sets out across territory held by warring tribes. To be allowed through, he must prove his oneness with the Soul of the World by turning himself into a dust storm. On the way the pair also stop with a Coptic monk, and the alchemist makes gold from a lead pot the monk supplies. The book never names this stretch of desert or the monastery, which is why the stop has no pin.

Location precision: The novel never names this stretch of desert or the monastery, so there is no pin.

At last Santiago reaches the pyramids and begins to dig. Thieves rob him and ask what he is looking for, and he tells them honestly that a dream led him to buried treasure. They laugh, and their leader says he once dreamed of treasure under a tree at a ruined church. The Great Pyramid is the oldest of the Ancient Wonders and the only one still standing, and the pyramids have long stood as emblems of Egypt in the Western imagination.

Location precision: The novel says only "the Egyptian pyramids"; the pin marks the Giza pyramid complex, the most famous of them.

Visitor guidance: The complex lies on the edge of the Western Desert, about 13 km southwest of central Cairo.

The thief's casual remark sends the story full circle. Santiago realises that the treasure he sought lay where he first had his dream, goes back to the ruined church and finds it there, then sets off to return to Fatima. The twist is an old one: Coelho built his plot on the folktale known as "The Treasure at Home", whose earliest known version is a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi.

Location precision: The church is the same unplaced one from the opening, so this stop has no pin.