What are some of your favorite literary sights in Europe and why?
I love travel and literature. That makes Europe a gold mine. I have seen a couple dozen literary sights, but there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, depending on how a literary sight is defined.
Here are my three favorites:
1.) Anne Frank House, family residence and school, Amsterdam: If I were banned to a desert island and could take only 10 books with me, one would be Anne Frank's diary. Her love of writing radiates off the pages. Her message is hope. In the Anne Frank House, where she, her family and some friends hid from the Nazis for two years, it was moving to see the marks that Anne's father, Otto, made on the wall to measure her height. Plus, for practically an hour, I stared through the glass case holding her red-cover diary. Anne's cramped and curly handwriting shows she was a natural writer. I made sure to touch the wall in the room where Anne slept, hoping her magic would transfer to me.
I ventured into south Amsterdam on a bicycle to see if I could find her family residence at Merwedeplein 37-II. After bicycling for an hour--getting lost a couple times--I spotted the housing development because of the famous tall building on the edge of it. Unfortunately, her family's residence is not open to the public, but I didn't care. I just wanted to see where Anne Frank had lived for nine years. Ironically, as I was going back to central Amsterdam, I came upon the The 6th Montessori School Anne Frank, which she attended from 1934 to 1941. The school is active and not a museum.
2.) Dublin Writers Museum: This sight in the Irish capital is for the true culture vulture of literature. There are letters, first editions and other ephemera in the museum, which is not far from O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. I felt enlightened after reading the trenchant displays on great writers, literary movements and trends in Ireland.
3.) Shakespeare's Globe, London: This is Xanadu for lovers of the Bard. The modern Globe Theater, where Shakespeare's plays are acted throughout the year, is a reconstruction of the original Globe, the site of which is not far away. In the timbered, thatched reconstruction, I saw a performance of Henry IV, Part 2, while standing, like the groundling I am, in the yard. Excellent tours of the theater are available, and they explain the philosophy of the reconstructed Globe and--I am proud to say--the theater's interesting connection to Chicago, my home town.
Attached to the Globe is a superb museum and book store. Next to the theater and museum, visitors can see the site of The Rose, another theater where some of Shakespeare's plays were acted. The foundations of The Rose are visible, but kept under water to prevent disintegration. The site of the original Globe can be seen, too, but nothing of it remains, as the site holds a housing complex.
Honorable mentions:
1.) The British Library, London: Visitors can see the Golden Haggadah (and other early illuminated Bibles), the Magna Carta, a Shakespeare First Folio and other treasures.
2.) ETA Hoffman House: Bamberg, Germany: Hoffman, the original author of The Nutcracker, lived in this humble abode for a couple years. Look for the hole in the ceiling, through which he would speak with his wife between floors.
3.) Shakespeare & Co., Paris: It's possibly the world's greatest book store, even if it's no longer in the original location, where Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein liked to spend their days.