Reading Time: 3 minutes

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week we will share a list based on the topic provided by The Broke and the Bookish.

Bookish Settings We Would Love to Visit

WE LOVE BOOKISH settings where the world within the story and our physical world overlap, enabling us to fantasize about walking the same streets one day and staying in the same houses as the characters we’ve read about.

Sash

I VISITED MY first bookish settings in Europe. The places I visited were amazing and now when I read about them I can say that I’ve been there. I may have also found that Inverness, Scotland is in my retirement future.

Inverness, Scotland 

1.   
I visited one of the major settings in the Outlander television series and I assume, at least the first book, Outlander as I have not actually read the books.

I loved walking through the Culloden Battlefield. It is a historical landmark that will remain protected from land developers. Thousands of Scots died in that field in 1746 and to see it perfectly preserved is magnificent.

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Edinburgh Castle

2. Next stop, Edinburgh Castle sitting atop Castle Rock. There is so much history behind Edinburgh Castle, it was amazing to see a historic landmark still standing and well-preserved.

Edinburgh Castle was the inspiration for a lot of contemporary and fantasy book settings and as such it was awe-inspiring to see the original behind the

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Inn Boonsboro

3. Nora Roberts and her husband own the Inn Boonsboro, you can read the full history of the property here.

Since taking ownership of the building Roberts has changed the once Boone Hotel into a Bed & Breakfast with each room featuring famous literary couples who have found their happy ending.

I first found Inn Boonsboro in Roberts’ BoonsBoro Trilogy and was amazed that there were rooms designed after characters such as Titania & Oberon, Elizabeth & Darcy, Westley & Buttercup and more importantly, Eve & Roarke, Roberts’ characters from—my favourite—the In Death series.

I have old pictures of Titania and Oberon’s room so they may have changed since the Inn Boonsboro was updated.

But, here is a glimpse of Eve and Roarke’s room. You can check out the rest of the rooms here.

Carmen

I HAD TO THINK about this one for a while to come up with some bookish settings I would like to visit; finally, I was able to come up with a few. For me, the problem came with distinguishing from bookish settings and the places I would travel to regardless of any books I’ve read that are set there.

Narnia

1.
I haven’t read all the Chronicles of Narnia, but I have read the first two books: The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And I loved the world that C.S Lewis created, where animals talk and magic exist. Not seeing the religious analogies that he created.

Hogwarts

2.
Despite the comments made by J.K Rowling, I still really want to visit Hogwarts. I may not agree, support or any other verb her opinions but the world that she created even in just, as a physical place is so appealing to me. I mean a magical castle how can you beat that. It’s my two favourite things combined!

The World of the All Souls series

3.
The world of the All Souls series is actually just our world but with demons, witches and vampires. The aspect of this world that makes me want to be there or for it to be real is the magic. Are you sensing a pattern yet? 😄 The way that Deborah Harkness incorporates magic into the everyday world makes it one of my favourite bookish settings.

Heartland Farm

4.
This was more a place I wanted to visit when I was younger, but I would still like to visit this bookish setting. I was a horseback rider for a long time and the ideas that Lauren Brooke has the Heartland Ranch use for training and dealing with problem horses always entranced me. I have always wanted to visit and find a stable like this in Canada/ real life.

That’s it for bookish settings we would love to visit. In Sash’s case, she was able to visit some of those settings. Carmen on the other hand could only dream.

Happy Reading!