Top Ten Places in Books I'd Want to Visit

This week Top Ten Tuesday is asking us to share places from books we'd like to visit.  Allllllllllllllll aboard!


1. Hogwart's

2. Al's Diner with a Portal to 1958, a la 11/22/1968

Obviously this one is immediately on my mind because of watching the Hulu series  based on 11/22/1963,     but one of the reasons I was drawn to that book so much was because of the setting.  I grew up listening largely to music from the 1950s and 60s -- it was the only non-church music  my parents would listen to in the car  or in our home --   and watching series like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet or The Wonder Years.   Granted, I wouldn't want to live in 1958 (insert the usual reasons, from pervasive smoking to race relations), but  how I'd love to visit it...again and again,  using the diner for historical tourism. Penn Station? The Hotel Albert?   It'd all be there waiting for me.


3.  Amsterdam, from The City of Bikes

 

Granted, this one isn't impossible. Once I pay off my student loans (OCTOBER OCTOBER OCTOBER),   I'll be able to travel more, and I could theoretically handle even a jaunt across the Atlantic.  I suspect, however, Amsterdam is more meaningful to me as an ideal rather than a reality, and if I got there I'd be overwhelmed by the crowds and the noise. 

4. The Flat of One Bertie Wooster (P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves-and-Wooster stories)

Honestly, I'd pop in to let Jeeves serve me some English drink I've never heard of ("A lemon squash,  Jeeves, thank you") and then listen to Bertie talk, because he's a riot.   Perhaps I could even witness him being shanghaied by one of his aunts.

5. The Oasis, Ready Player One

I realize that the real world Wade and company live in is definitely a craptastic wasteland, but I am only visiting after all, and if I'm visiting  you really can't get more value for money than the friggin' Oasis. 

6. Narnia, The Chronicles thereof

 The best bits of the medieval era -- castles, swords,   quests -- without the constant smell of manure, urine, and death.

7. The Shire, LOTR

 A quiet life surrounded by friends, food, drink, and gardens? Count me in, and if Gandalf shows up I'm not at home. And if those dwarves show up I'm most definitely not home.


8. Tara

 

 I've been in my share of grand antebellum estates and savored their smell and sights, but I've never been to a country plantation home, one that would have commanded the surrounding countryside like its kingdom in miniature.  Those who have read Gone with the Wind know that Tara -- for Scarlett -- means stability and home more than anything else, and the movie delivers that feeling well:

 ASHLEY: Tara, the red earth of Tara.

Mr. O'HARA: That land's the only thing that matters, it's the only thing that lasts.
ASHLEY: Something you love better than me, though you may not know it... Tara.
Mr. O'HARA: ...From which you get your strength...
ASHLEY: ... the red earth of Tara.
Mr. O'HARA: Lands the only thing that matters...
ASHLEY: something you love better than me...

ASHLEY: ...the red earth of

Tara...Tara!... Tara!... Tara!
SCARLETT: Tara! Home.

 9. The Nautilus, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

I can still remember being fascinated by the idea of the submarine having a Star Trek-like viewing window as a kid. 

10. The Abbey, Redwall

 

EULALIAAAAAAAAA!

C'mon...it's a medieval-like castle-monastery thing filled with woodland creatures who wear robes and pack swords and bows. I'd want to be one of the animals, of course (little awkward otherwise).