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Twilight: Forks and Volterra

Bella Swan moves to the rainiest corner of Washington and falls for a vampire. Stephenie Meyer picked the town of Forks by searching for rainy places, and the story then carries Bella and Edward from the Olympic Peninsula to the clock tower of Volterra in Tuscany.

Contains major story spoilers.

Mapped by Mapped Chronicles editors5 locationsCountries: United States, ItalyGPX

#vampires#forks#volterra#stephenie-meyer#film-locations#twilight

Timeline & locations

What do the location labels mean?
Approximate
The right area — a town, park or district — but not a precise spot.

  1. Bella Swan leaves Phoenix for Forks, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, to live with her father, the town's police chief. Stephenie Meyer set the story here after searching Google for rainy settings, and the place delivers: Forks gets more than 100 inches of rain a year. Visitors rose from about 6,000 a year before Twilight to nearly 73,000 by 2010, though most of the films were not shot in Forks itself.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The novel's school and houses are not tied to named buildings here; the pin marks the town.

    Sources

  2. On a visit to First Beach, Bella meets Jacob Black, a local boy from the Quileute tribe. The beach lies at La Push, 14 miles from Forks, the home of the real Quileute Tribe. The town now draws a good amount of tourism partly because of the novels.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The novel names First Beach but not a single spot on it; the pin marks La Push.

    Sources

  3. Bella is saved by Edward again in Port Angeles, when a group of men almost attacks her. Furious, he drives her away and takes her to dinner. Port Angeles also appears in the 2008 film, where the date between Bella and Edward is set at a real restaurant, Bella Italia.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The restaurant is real but its exact address is not confirmed here; the pin marks Port Angeles.

    Sources

  4. In New Moon, Edward believes Bella is dead and flees to Volterra to provoke the Volturi, vampire royalty who could kill him. The clock-tower confrontation was the first scene Meyer wrote. She had meant to invent a city, then found a real Volterra exactly where she had planned to put it, calling it a creepy coincidence. The real town is a walled mountaintop settlement in Tuscany.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The novel puts the Volturi in Volterra's clock tower without naming a building; the pin marks the town.

    Sources

  5. For the film of New Moon, the Volterra scenes were shot elsewhere. After scouting more than twelve possible locations, the team selected Montepulciano as the best match for Meyer's description. Principal photography began in Vancouver on 23 March 2009 and ended in Montepulciano on 29 May, with the Volterra scenes filmed here from 25 to 29 May.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: Montepulciano stands in for Volterra in the film; the sources do not name the square, so the pin marks the town.

    Sources

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