Neither here nor there by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.

You’ve never travelled across Europe as Bill Bryson has – or at least you  haven’t seen it quite as he does!

Brace yourself..

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TOG Walk

Aachen is a vibrant wheelchair friendly student city and our evening tour began at the Elisenbrunnen.

Aachen is a vibrant wheelchair friendly student city and our evening tour began at the Elisenbrunnen.

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Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann’s mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier– the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet– who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter.
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Mari Hannah brings the landscape and coastline of Northumberland to life with all of her books but Monument to Murder is particularly apt for a walk passing the mighty ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle. Monument to Murder takes place with this castle in the background.Most of the story unfolds on Bamburgh Beach with Dunstanburgh just down the coast. The sands here are the scene for a criminal find... The windswept North East coastline is evoked in style and Jo, a character from the book even has a cottage in Low Newton where the walk ends up.
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What better book to take to Sycamore Gap than this one! The iconic Sycamore Gap – an iconic part of Hadrian’s Wall. Now notorious for a murder… The tree on the cover is the iconic tree featured in many photos, films and even Robin Hood. In the novel, it’s a barren and remote land, an unforgiving landscape where paganism is rife and old customs still hold sway. DCI Ryan and Anna investigate the scene and the subsequent mysteries whilst their relationship develops – and it’s this interaction and different ways of working that really puts a unique spin on a unique case in a unique setting!
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If ever there was a city built for book lovers, then this is it! Every year the famous Hay festival takes place. So whether you travel to the town for this or for a holiday at any other time, Barbara Erskine books take you there and back in time too! Sleeper’s Castle  – a mysterious name for a house on the border between England and Wales. Sue lives here but is heading back to Australia for a year, she lets friend Miranda live there rent free if she’ll look after it. Miranda finds the house’s creaks and groans very mysterious.....Catrin who lived in the house in 1400 is calling out to her... If you can tear yourself away from the book and the book festival, Hay Castle plays a role in the book’s landscape and is well worth a visit.
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If, no, when you visit Snowdonia, you have to pay a visit to Portmeiron as it’s a very unique location for a wander and a novel! In the novel, the writer, Josephine Tey, joins her friends in the holiday village of Portmeirion to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville, are there to sign a deal to film Josephine’s novel.However, tragedy strikes and a mystery ensues... There’s some strong literary heritage here too - Portmeirion is a tourist village designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975. Apparently inspired by Portofino on the Italian Riviera. The village now is owned by a charitable trust.
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A dusty box opens up to release a ghost of a girl with a terrible secret... This book captures the ethereal spirit which covers many of Wales’ mountains and valleys. The grand old house in the novel may be fictional but there’s a sense that it might be the ruins of the one you see on your walks in Snowdonia.. Gull House is the fictional house’s name.... where a ghost girl now seems to be haunting...
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A man takes a restorative walking holiday in Germany but finds more than he bargained for… This novel is a walk, a wander and a realisation along the River Thine in Germany. Every day Futh stays in a different hotel, on a walking tour  having first arrived at hotel called Hellhaus … Hellhaus is a play on words and images. The name in German means Lighthouse, but of course it had more dubious connotations in English.
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Fictional town of Molching close to Munich. Liesel is only 9 years old when she is taken to live with a foster family in Himmel Street, Molching, a (fictional) village just outside Munich. Liesel’s real parents have been taken to a concentration camp – for this is war time in Germany during The Third Reich. Liesel and her brother were supposed to be saved but her brother sadly dies on the journey – it is during this funeral that Liesel steals her first book – a gravediggers’s manual which she uses to teach herself to read. But reading, and sharing new knowledge can be dangerous in Germany. One day a visitor from the past comes calling… and Liesel’s world changes.
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In the summer of 1944 Gertraud Weisker 20 years old when her cousin Eva Braun invited her to come and keep her company at Berchtesgaden. This is the story of her fascination with the easy, glamorous lifestyle of her cousin and the gradual realisation of the dark history unfolding around it
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If it’s gritty Glasgow you wish to delve into, Craig Robertson is your perfect guide. He used to be a journalist and so wrote about many stories in and around the city so knows the place like no one else. His novel In Place of Death goes on a rather circular trail of the city but through Craig and his characters’ eyes’....
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The books of Frances Brody are an excellent way of discovering parts of the Dales you might not have seen otherwise. Death in the Dales is set around Settle and Langcliffe which are only a short distance from this walk. You can certainly get a good view from Malham of the setting on the book’s cover and the delights of this part of the world Private Investigator Kate Shackleton investigates: “On the approach to Settle, I noticed the whiteness of the roads,due to the limestone formation. Sharply defined hills, boulders and rocks stood out against green foliage.
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This walk starts and ends at Keswick so what better book to read here than the historical mystery tale of Island of Bones, set in and around the village and in particular on St Herberts’ Island in the middle of Derwentwater. “On the Island of Bones lies the tomb of the first Earl of Greta. When the tomb is opened there is one body too many….and so the mystery begins…”
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You can’t go to Botallack mine without thinking of Poldark and taking one of the 12 Poldark novels with you. This site was of course Wheal Leisure in the TV programmes and you’ll see so much of Poldark’s landscape by venturing on this walk and appreciating how difficult it would have been to ride horses along here for miles until the next village. Ross and Demelza might well be spotted as you walk to appreciate the surroundings which seem to be frozen in time.
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A railway walk would be the perfect companion to this book as it’s set firmly in the Welsh Mountains in the present day but in a Wales that is still very much rural and untouched as it was when the railway was built. The story takes place in a rural cottage in the mountains and the mist in the story creates the most ethereal of settings “In the lower fields the sheep huddled miserably agains the stone walls, half grown lambs pressed against their mothers silently enduring the familiar climatic conditions”
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This island has a rare and exciting history to discover and the books of Chris Ewan will certainly give you a unique view of the island and its history. There’s a lot of folklore and stories about this place - do you know about the Hop-tu-Naa, the Manx Halloween? It’s a Celtic festival which takes place on 31st October like Halloween although this festival dates back much earlier. The name pronounced Hop two nay – translates as This is the Night…..
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As well as a stunningly pretty National Trust property, this site offers an insight into the region’s past too. Wendy Moore’s Wedlock tells of the true story of the the Bowes family – a notable family in the North East and Mary Eleanor Bowes in particular. Her story is so beyond belief that it almost defies it. In 1760, at the age of only 11 years, Mary ‘s rich businessman father died, leaving her his sole heiress with an estimated net worth of millions and millions. When her first husband died she was expected to marry again – enter Andrew Robinson Stoney – a charming and psychopathic man.
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Whilst not strictly set at Sissinghurst, Kate Morton’s book was heavily inspired by this castle and gardens. Milderhurst Castle as it appears in the book 'The Distant Hours', has a majestic tower where a writer lives with his three daughters. He writes in his tower (exactly where real life inhabitants Rita Sackville West and her husband wrote) The tower becomes an integral part of the plot and the Kent countryside comes to live through Morton’s evocative writing. It’s an homage to this wondrous literary linked home.
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