10 Bookish Places I’d Love to Visit

If the writing is vivid and my imagination engaged, it can seem that I’m in a book’s setting.  But it’s not quite the same as actually being there.  Many times I’ve wished to be in the places I’ve read about.  Being a wishful thinker, I’ve written an itinerary:

art by Pauline Baynes

• The Beaver’s Lodge- Narnia–

I’ve always loved the scene with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s lodge.  Although, maybe I’m more taken with the idea of beavers that serve tea than I am with the setting.  

Lucy thought the Beavers had a very snug little home though it was not all like Mr. Tumnus’s cave.  There were no books or pictures, and instead of beds there were bunks, like on board ship, built into the wall.  And there were hams and strings of onions hanging from the roof, and oilskins and hatchets and pairs of shears and spades and trowels and things for carrying mortar in and fishing-rods and fishing-nets and sacks.  And the cloth on the table, though very clean, was very rough.

• The Great Library of Ban Rona- Wingfeather Saga-

This place is automatically amazing, since it’s a library.  But it gets even better with the inclusion of the reading-tree (not to mention the secret tunnels which the eager and phantom-like librarian uses to haunt the patrons).

 The building was of reddish stone, streaked with age, and beautiful.  It was several stories high, and each level had a balcony where people sat in the shade with pipes and mugs of cider, reading books among the leaves.  Since Janner was a boy, and boys always think of climbing things, he noticed how easy it would be to step off the balcony and climb along the thick limbs- then he spotted several people doing just that.  They strolled along the branches of the trees, deep into the overstory where platforms were attached to the limbs.  Comfortable chairs perched on the platforms, and feet dangled over the edge where people reclined, lost in stories or studies.  The more Janner looked, the more people he saw in the trees.

• The Gardens of Hymlume- Golden Daughter–

I’m not sure how I’d be able to stand in such a massive and mystical place without melting into a puddle.  But I would like to try, just to have a moment to see the blossoms and hear the Moon and her children sing!

The Moon’s Garden was full of flowers:  enormous, spreading, clustering flowers of light, of night, of half-light.  They shimmered, they spread, they twined through the sky, brilliant tendrils of living, glowing, beauty, and a single petal would have been enough to cover all of Daramuti and the Khir Mountains.  A blossom would encompass a kingdom.  They spread across the eternal sky.  And they bloomed before Jovann’s desperate gaze, then faded, then bloomed again.  At first the flowers were all he could see.  He might have sat for and age or two of mortal worlds, just trying to look with all the fullness of his heart, trying to see them as he knew they must be seen, but as he could not see.  The enormous Song rained down upon him, and he wept without knowing that he did so.

• The Library of the Haven- Tales of Goldstone Wood–

As with the first library mentioned, this one is also automatically awesome, but it gets bonus points for being a Faerie library!  Here the walls become trees when viewed in a certain way, and the words of fanciful languages translate themselves into one’s mind.

He came at last to the library of Dame Imraldera.  There he stood, his breath quite taken from his body, and stared…Now the great pillared room in which the Chronicler stood was filled with scroll after scroll of her hard labor.  Prophecies both fulfilled and unfulfilled, legends of heroes and monsters, true stories, false stories, stories that were both.  All could be found in this library, where Dame Imraldera could always be found at her work.

• The Shire- Lord of the Rings–

I would love to catch a ride on Gandalf’s cart and visit the shire, to set off fireworks for the hobbit children and have tea at Bag End.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.  It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.  The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel…The best rooms were all on the lefthand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

• The Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus- the Bright Empires Series–

It’s a cafe set in 17^th century Prague. Of course I want to go!  Besides, I might be able to meet the amazing owners, Mina and Etzle!

She left the wagon outside the Kaffeehaus and went inside.  The air was warm and full of the yeasty scent of dough on the rise.  Mina drew a breath deep into her lungs.  A few patrons idled over their coffee and strudel in an atmosphere of peace and calm.  The warm scent of fresh coffee and rising dough mingled in the air.  I love this place, she thought.  Is there anywhere better than this?

• Kirkcudbright – Five Red Herrings–

Kirkcudbright quickly caught my attention.  I would love to live in a Scottish town full of artists, especially if Lord Peter Wimsey comes for a visit now and then.  What’s this?  Kirkcudbright is a real place?  Farewell, friends and family, I’m moving!

The artistic centre of Galloway is Kirkcudbright, where the painters form a scattered constellation, whose nucleus is in the High Street, and whose outer stars twinkle in remote hillside cottages, radiating brightness as far as Gatehouse-of-Fleet.  There are large and stately studios, paneled and high, in strong stone houses filled with gleaming brass and polished oak.  There are workaday studios- summer perching-places rather than settled homes- where a good north light and a litter of brushes and canvas form the whole of the artistic stock-in-trade.  There are little homely studios, gay with blue and red and yellow curtains and odd scraps of pottery, tucked away down narrow closes and adorned with gardens, where old-fashioned flowers riot in the rich and friendly soil.  There are studios that are simply and solely barns, made beautiful by ample proportions and high pitched rafters, and habitable by the addition of a tortoise stove and gas-ring.

• That place in Leaf by Niggle, where Niggle sees his tree-

First of all, his tree sounded so unique I would like to see it for myself.  But if this is a place where an artist’s most soul-filled creations are made real, then I would love to go and see if mine are there also!

‘It’s a gift!’ he said.  He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.  He went on looking at the Tree.  All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.  Nothing was written on them, they were just exquisite leaves, yet they were dated as clear as a calendar.

• Avonlea- Anne of Green Gables-

I know that P.E.I is a real place, and that I could go there (if I had more money and less distaste for airports), but what I really want is to walk the White Way of Delight and boat on the Lake of Shining Waters with L.M. Montgomery’s delightful characters.

“Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom!  This Island is the bloomiest place.  I just love it already, and I’m so glad I’m going to live here.  I’ve always heard that Prince Edward Island is the prettiest place in the world. And I used to imagine that I was living here, but I never really expected I would.  It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?”

• Nutwood- The Rupert Annuals-

Highly unlikely adventures seem to be an everyday thing in this place, so it’s bound to be fun.  But mainly I just want to see the autumn imps and the imps of spring, perhaps help them in their work keeping the trees and flowers of Nutwood healthy and happy.  I loved the little imps!

from 1975