I haven't taken a literary vacation, but I have been to Stratford-on-Avon and have toured the Dickens House in London. (Does the Sherlock Holmes Museum count?) It is on my to-do list to take the Literary Walk with London Walks.

And then there was the several-hour-long lunch meeting last fall with Anyanka and Martin at Waterstone's Bookstore. That was pretty literary.

Thank you, Carolyn, for reminding me of the location of your meeting. I thought of you all while I was in London. As I was with students and family, I knew I wouldn't have time to arrange an RPers meeting as you three did.

One of the places that intrigued me the most was the Long Hall in Trinity College, Dublin. Wow. What a spectacular place to see. Someone had apparently requested a book while we were there, and watching the extreme production of masking and gloving 3 people to retreive the book was really impressive.

I also forgot to mention that we stopped at Rowling's little Edinburgh pub, The Elephant House. The teens on the trip especially loved seeing it.

That long lunch was great fun, Carolyn! I hope there'll be more RP meetings like that in the future.

As for literary vacations: Oxford is one of my favourite places anyway, but I revisited it with fresh quests after reading Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. Same as Lyra, we looked at the trepanned skulls in the Pitt Rivers (wonderfully eccentric museum). We also sat on the bench in the Botanical Gardens where Lyra and Will arrange to meet regularly.

When I first lived in London, I went to Kew Gardens because of a short story by Virginia Woolf. In Wales, had a beautiful day at the Worm's Head and Rhossilli Bay thanks to Dylan Thomas. Also visited Thomas Hardy's birthplace/cottage in Dorset and tried to see Max Gate, his house in Dorchester too, but it was closed that day...

The most exciting literary visits for me were in California, though, all Steinbeck places: Monterey and Carmel for Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, San Luis Obispo because of The Wayward Bus.

Several times we've had a 4-day Christmas break in Stratford on Avon - going again this year. I like the town very much but it's far too crowded in season and you can't park.

Vacations apart though, I've lived in some places with literary associations. For 15 years I lived in Pangbourne, where Kenneth Grahame once lived and where that stretch of the Thames is supposed to have given him inspiration to write Wind in the Willows. It's very beautiful. Then, I spent 17 years in Haworth, West Yorkshire, about 200 yards from the Parsonage where the Brontes lived.

Dido

I went to Rye, Sussex to see the place where E.E. Benson's Mapp and Lucia 'lived' and bought several of the books in the local bookshop also a card that depicted the characters in the High Street. "Any news?"
They were some of the 'must-keep' books I brought to Australia...

dido, I'm so jealous! One of the stops we'd hoped to make was at Haworth. Alas, no time. Tell me, did I miss a lot? Should I be sure to schedule it for the next trip?

We'd also hoped to get to Ayr, in Scotland, the home of Robert Burns. A member of our group is a descendant of the Burns family. We had to settle for the memorabilia we could see in Edinburgh, and a wonderful story told to us by an emcee at a 'Scottish Night' performance we attended.

Captainbackfire,

I think Haworth is very beautiful but not in a soft, southern English sort of way. Many would call it 'dour', and it is, I suppose, with it's buildings of millstone grit. Main Street is cobbled (I think it was probably re-cobbled for effect in the mid 20th century, but it works) and all the cottages are beautifully proportioned. The Parsonage is now a museum, of course, and well-worth a look. The churchyard is amazing - just as was in that early photograph where there's a woman who might well have been Charlotte - except there are now more trees. Rooks caw very forcefully and loudly all the time. The Black Bull pub is much as it was outside, but has, of course, been 'modernised' and ruined (to my mind) inside.

Unfortunately, it is just about the most touristy places I have ever visited - one reason we moved away. Tourists throng the village especially at weekends and holidays. I wouldn't mind, except they don't even know where they are (many come on bus trips) or why the place is famous, and they are exploited at every step by the shopkeepers, most of whom are not local but have moved in to make what they hope will be a quick buck or two out of the total trash that they mainly sell! You get Bronte everything - including burgers! In fact, as an aid to idiots, the place is now getting more and more referred to as 'Bronte Village', a title which those of us with any feelling for the place find abhorrent! The place's name is 'Haworth', for goodness sake. Grr! Oh Emily, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

Sorry, I didn't know that rant was coming on me. Hope that helps. Try, if you visit, to look beyond the crowds and the silly shops (though there was one good 2nd hand bookshop up Main Street when I was there)

Dido

Having been born in Stratford and then living there for 20 something years I tend to avoid all places with a 'tourist' tag. Of course in my young day (in the dim and distant past) there was always a quiet season when it was possible to walk along the streets and hear only English spoken or not to be mown down by 'coach-parties' or having to take care when driving for people who looked the 'wrong-way' when crossing the road.
Dido I visited Haworth about 30+ years ago and for some reason had thought it was in the middle of nowhere, which of course, it isn't, with shops, houses and a railway line at the bottom of the hill. If you want a good wuther you need to look north away from the village towards the moors.

Even more years ago I did manage to see the Book of Kells, but while it was 'on show' in London, not in Dublin.
And more prosaic, I've peered into the shed in which Dylan Thomas did some of his writing . . . and the pub in which he spent even more of his time drinking.

In the early 70's, I read Johnny Tremain to my then 3 year old son. That led to Forbes' Biography of Paul Revere, and the family watching the PBS production of The Adams Chronicles, and on and on through many other revolution books that he also began reading himself. In '78 we went to Boston, and visited the historical Boston. To see the awe on the child's face to be where his heroes had been was incredible. Last summer we took the entire, now much larger and one more generation, to Boston again and visited many of the same places. It was just as magical for the grandchildren, who had been "prepped" in much the same way with many of the same books, stories and poems.

Vee,

A lot of Haworth is in the middle of nowhere - just one bit of it joins Oakworth and Keighely, the rest of it fades into moorland which eventually turns into Lancashire - Nelson and Colne. And yes, the time when Haworth was mine (ours, we who lived there) was Mon.-Fri., mornings, middle of February - the only time you could walk down a deserted Main Street. Few shops open though, of course...... When I first moved there, in 1983, it wasn't a quarter as bad or I think I'd have thought twice about being there. I lived towards the 'Wuthering' (near the bottom of Main Street), which meant good walks straight on to the moors.

You can go on a fiendish Dylan Thomas trail, here, at dear old Swansea, that 'ugly, lovely town' where he was born. Good seashore, too, and the lovely Gower coast nearby. But Laugharne is prettier and more compact. And still not too overrun with tourists, as I found when I passed through a couple of years ago. There's a good second-hand bookshop there, almost opposite Browns Hotel.

Dido

Captain Backfire jogged my memory! I spent a couple of days in Ayr in 1981 and visited the Robert Burns museum, which was one of those wonderful cobbled-together little affairs. As far as I can recall, all the good stuff is at some other museum, so they had to make do with five different copies of the one portrait of Burns; a tea-cup owned by a neighbour of Burns; a nightdress belonging to a contemporary of Burns! - and my favourite, the presents given to the museum by the Russian translater of Burns's works, which included a little plastic replica of the Moscow radio/tv tower.

I saw the Book of Kells in Dublin and was blown away by the Documents Room at the British Library.

Also bought a book at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris this spring. They stamped it with the shop name, but it is only a paperback mystery and a very expensive one I might say.

I saw Othello presented by The Royal Shakespeare Co. when I was in England in 1999. I also went to a Waterstone's in London-I think it was somewhere near Trafalgar Square? I was also in Cambridge and drove through the Cotswolds ....would so like to return someday! I also have a yen to see Scotland and some of the islands therebouts (sp)-recently added Italy to my list and perhaps Greece? Guess I can always dream! (lots of "I"s, oh well)