Travel Writing
- By: Clayton Truscott
- Published: 02 March 2010
- Tags: events
World Book Day may sport a misleading title (it's a celebration of literature and reading in UK and Ireland rather than a global shindig), but its spirit is admirable. The charity event not only encourages children to read, it aims to reignite the passion in lapsed adult readers as well.
With celebrations taking place on March 4, we thought we'd offer a global take on World Book Day with a round up of holiday destinations with a literary twist. Discover where Ernest Hemingway found inspiration, travel in the footsteps of the Bronte sisters and put pen to paper in the same spot as Jane Austen.
Ernest Hemmingway
Check into the Hotel Ambos Mundos in the centre of Havana's old town in Cuba and get a feel for Hemingway's writing routine. Frozen in time (complete with his typewriter and notes on the table), room 511 is where the writer lived for more than seven years in the 1930s, and where he began to write For Whom The Bell Tolls.
The Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour
A sort of pub crawl-cum-literary tour, this jaunt around Scotland's capital city is a must for bookish types. A theatrical duo (Clart and McBrain) lead you on dramatic romp through four of Edinburgh's pubs shedding light on the work of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Ferguson and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Jane Austen
Jane Austen's last home (where she spent the final eight years of her life) is set in the pretty village of Chawron near Alton in Hampshire. The house is where Austen wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion and it remains largely as it was, serving as a museum in her honour.
The Word Travels
This British-based travel company helps you to travel in the footsteps of your favourite authors. It's trips include a jaunt across the Yorkshire moors in the steps of the Bronte sisters; a trip to Granada to explore the landscape that inspired Lorca; as well as a walk through London that picks out the key sites that provoked Iris Murdoch's fiction.
Da Vinci Code
Fans of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code will find Classic Walk's Parisian tour appealing. The walking trip takes in all the key spots from The Ritz and St. Sulpice to the Tuileries Gardens and The Louvre.
