Literary travels – destinations made famous by your favourite writers
Great writers have the ability to make a destination jump off the page. Here are five places made famous by great writers where you can step into the pages of your favourite book.
Myanmar
During the 1920s and 30s Burma (as it was called then) was a hub for the most famous writers in the world. George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham all lived here and the capital Yangon (Rangoon) was a buzzing party town and the most beautiful capital in the British Empire.
Much has changed in modern day Myanmar, but travellers can still spend the night in the famous Strand hotel where Kipling used to write or travel up the Ayeyarwady River stopping at the small towns that Orwell made famous in Burmese Days.
Bali
In 2006 Elizabeth Gilbert chronicled the breakdown of her marriage and her own recovery in the novel Eat Pray Love. After stints in Italy (eating) and India (praying), Gilbert set up camp in Ubud in the lush green hills of Bali to find a balance of the two – and ultimately found love.
The book and subsequent film have brought a huge influx of travellers to Ubud, but it is still a quiet region of rice paddies, ancient Hindu temples and roadside stalls – though there is now a healthy dose of art galleries, small bars and boutiques added to the mix. Check into a villa and let the soul soothing begin.
St Petersburg
St Petersburg has been the inspiration for novelists from Russian greats like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky through to The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons. During the city’s famed white nights (a period from May to July where the sun barely sets and the city experiences near constant daylight) you can practically see Anna Karenina dashing through the streets in her finest.
Russia is also home to more literary museums than any other country in the world and in St Petersburg you can visit the Dostoevsky museum in the apartment where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov or the National Pushkin Museum dedicated to Russia’s favourite poet.
Dublin
Dublin is one of only six UNESCO Literary Cities in the world, which is not surprising when you consider it’s the birthplace of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and WB Yeats. Joyce’s Ulysses follows a day in the life of three Dubliners and fans can now take a self-guided walking tour around the city visiting the places mentioned in the book (there’s even a virtual tour online if you’re more of an armchair traveller).
Visit the Dublin Writers Museum to learn about the city’s great literary history or head to Trinity College to see the legendary Book of Kells, an illuminated gospel manuscript dating from 800AD.
Cuba
To think of Cuba is to think of Ernest Hemingway; sitting at a bar, mojito in hand, cigar clamped firmly between his teeth. Papa, as he was known, lived in Cuba for more than 20 years and it was the setting for his last major fiction book, the Pulitzer Prize winning The Old Man and the Sea.
The small fishing village of Cojimar, where Hemingway used to dock his boat, was the inspiration for the book and the old man is said to be based on Cojimar local Gregorio Fuentes. The village is largely unchanged, with narrow streets and a picturesque seafront – though expect to find a few tour buses stopped for photos by the bust of Hemingway.
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