Travelling as an avid reader

One of the fun bits of travel is seeiñg not only the real-life places I've read so much about - hallo, Rothenburg, you Disney dream of a village! - but also those places that I only know through fiction. Room With A View for Florence, of course, Murder On The Orient Express when we took an overnight train. And I'm surprised how closely my itinerary resembles that of Katy Carr (What Katy Did Next). London, Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice were on both our lists. I wonder how much of that came from my subconscious when I was planning? Though I have yet to be proposed to in a gondola...

But the most fun so far was re-enacting the chase scene from Borrower Of The Night (the first Vicky Bliss novel by Elizabeth Peters). Vicky also has adventures in Munich and Rome (my subconscious again!), but in Rothenburg she is chased around the medieval walls at midnight by the villain. And I got to run around those same walls! OK, it was 9am. And I did not so much run as tread cautiously, on account of the medieval stone cobbles being slippery underfoot and Rothenburg's nod to modern health-and-safety codes being a brief message saying At Your Own Risk. Also, it's not quite as menacing being chased by your own daughter. But she did her best, bless her!

Paris and London still to come and there are some interesting literary possibilities there. Well, I say "literary", but by that I mean "light novels of the fluffy kind", as they are my preferred reading material. Or perhaps children's books - I bet London is thick with Harry Potter possibilities...

Pictures: Being chased along the Rothenburg Wall and In Nuremberg. You will note that Nuremberg has everything the travelling lady could want -architecturally interesting buildings, a well-lit festive tree, and a well signposted toiletten!