10 'novel' travel ideas
Instead of taking a novel with you on your vacation, why not take your vacation to the novel?
Whether it's Anna Karenina on a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, or Jake Barnes in the dining car from Paris to Pamplona, here are 10 fictional journeys you could easily embark on yourself.
1. Paris to Pamplona, France and Spain
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Jake Barnes enjoys some dissolute Parisian pavement life with his friends before hopping on a train bound for Spain.
You can mimic this with a few glasses of pastis in the Latin quarter before heading to Gare d'Austerlitz for an overnight journey from Paris to Irun or Hendaye on the French-Spanish border, where you will be able to get a connection to Pamplona.
Remember to dine extravagantly on the train, washing down all you eat with several bottles of crisp white wine.
The trip: From Paris to Pamplona on the Lunéa sleeper train.
2. Los Angeles to Las Vegas, United States
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Hire a red Chevy on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, jump in and make for Highway 15, which will take you all the way to Las Vegas.
The drive will take about four hours -- or possibly more if you get into the true spirit of Thompson and his travel companion "the Samoan," who detoured to buy large quantities of alcohol and illegal substances. Of course we don't recommend doing that.
The trip: In a red Chevy from Sunset strip to Las Vegas.
3. Tonomine Highlands, Japan
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Head for the Tonomine Highlands in Hyogo prefecture near Kobe, where the wind-swept silver grass makes for an atmospheric backdrop to the tortured love story of Toru and Naoko.
Despite its name, which was inspired by a Beatles song, this novel unfolds in 1960s Japan. Grieving for their mutual friend who has killed himself, Toru and Naoko fall in love but their relationship becomes complicated.
Taking time out from their heartbreak, they get back to nature.
The trip: From Tokyo's campus life to the wild highlands outside Kobe.
4. Palermo to Bari, Italy
The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth
For a journey into 12th-century Sicily, a time when the Normans ruled over a multi-ethnic population on the island, try treading in the footsteps of Thurstan Beauchamp, the administrator to King Roger II who travels from Palermo to Bari and back.
Along the way he meets the mysterious dancer Nesrin, as well as his childhood sweetheart Lady Alicia, but in this treacherous society, who can he trust?
The trip: From Palermo to Bari via Messina. Don't miss out on the historical streets of Barivecchia and the fantastic Norman architecture at the Royal Palace of Palermo or the Cathedral at Monreale.
5. Changsha to Zhangjiajie, China
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Two students from the city are sent for re-education by Mao's Communist government, ending up in a remote village in the Pheonix Mountains in the Sky.
There they fall in love with the local tailor's daughter, while also keeping in touch with forbidden culture through a stolen suitcase full of Western literature (including a novel by Honorè de Balzac).
Sijie went on to write and direct the film adaptation of his novel -- filmed in some of the most breath-taking scenery of unspoiled China in the Zhangjiajie Mountains in Hunan province.
The trip: Journey into 1970s Communist China from Changsha, provincial capital of Hunan, to the city of Zhangjiajie from where you can visit the spectacular scenery at UNESCO World Heritage site of Wulingyuan.
