Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

His pioneer engineering accomplishments abound throughout the south of England: bridges, railway lines, tunnels, ships - he did 'em all.

JudyC,
I really like your "walks along the westmost coast of western Europe". I've also done the Caravaggio & Bernini in Rome.

Here are a few Iberian ones we've enjoyed:

prehistoric caves paintings of Asturias/Cantabria

Modernismo-Art Nouveau in Catalunya

Romanesque frescoes in Catalunya

pre-Romanesque churches in Asturias

castles in the two Castillas

olive mills & cortijos in Andalucía

windmills in La Mancha

hand painted ceramics in Portugal

the birthplaces of the conquistadores in Extremadura


As to food/wine related themes, too many to count!
Our food theme for July will be "the search for the best gateau basque" in the Pays Basque.

I'm so glad to find other compulsive before-and-after planners. I love liteary travels. I have books like "Heidi's Alp" and "Storybook Travels" for children's book sites. We of course have followed Harry Potter and Jane Austen in England and C.S. Lewis everywhere(stayed at his stepson's home in Ireland, explored the C.S. Lewis collection at Wheaton). "A Reader's Guide to Writers' Britain" has materials for many more trips.
In the US, we've done Laura Ingalls Wilder and Gene Strattin Porter trips, as well as Lincoln and Grant Wood.

We've done this in England:
- Bloomsbury Group
- Favourite mystery writers
- Favourite movie locations
- An English Christmas

Had a ball.

rickmav, I would love to know your mystery writers and English Christmas itineraries. Will you share?

How about a Gordon Ramsay resto crawl? He's recusitated several properties that look interesting - like the curry bar in Nottingham and the cajun mama's joint in Brighton.

I like that idea, Robes; not the GR restos, but the Kitchen Nightmares' ones?

Hannibal's route from Spain through southern France, across the Alps down through Italy to Rome (or further if you want) to start the Second Punic War. I did this by rail, hitchhiking, and foot in 1975 when I was a university undergraduate. One of the greatest months of my life.

The more you look at it the more astonishing the feat becomes. He then rattled around Italy for years creating havoc. Fascinating stuff.

As a male solo traveler I did a theme of sorts based on British Military Museums.

I am not what I would a veteran traveler - but I am doing a theme trip of sorts with my dd in the fall. We are doing a world war 11 theme of sorts... and then in Italy we are focusing on language immersion.

Yes carolyn, would love to share. Busy with Father's Day, but will write tomorrow.

for anyone doing Bernini in Rome I highly recommend Jake Morrisey's The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Borromini, and the Rivalry That Transformed Rome

There were so many places we wanted to visit on our last trip to Italy that we had to choose a theme to keep us focused and narrow the choices. Some of our favorites were Lucca, Volterra, Tuscania and Palistrina.

I had to come back and reiterate about Romanesque churches - in the Dordogne and the Auvergne in particular.

And rivers. I just have a thing about rivers and have made many a trip to include as many as I could.

Hi Carolyn. Sorry it took me a bit to get back to you. Re: two themes we've followed while travelling in England:

1. Favourite mystery writers (not all on one trip, but see as many as we can each time we go to England.)
- Agatha Christie - in Devon can see her home Greenway (operated by the National Trust and inspired Dead Man's Folly), the Torquay Museum where there is an exhibit on her life and Torre Abbey has a number of her manuscripts and her typewriter. You can also visit Bigbury on Sea, and Burgh Island where Christie wrote in a room at the Burgh Island hotel which inspired two novels, Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None. The Paignton Steam Railway features in a number of Hercule Poirot novels. In London, you can see The Mousetrap (the play) and in Oxfordshire, you can visit Christie's grave at St. Mary's Church in Cholsey. Nether Wallop, a tiny village in Hampshire, was the setting for St. Mary Mead and you can take pictures of Miss Marple's house and visit St. Andrew's church which appeared in some episodes.
- Colin Dexter still lives in Oxford where the Inspector Morse mysteries take place. Lots of Oxford appears in Dexter's novels, including: the Randolph Hotel, the Ashmolean Museum, Blackwell's book store, pubs like The White Horse, the Turf, and the Eagle and Child, the Sheldonian Theatre, Bodleian Library and Pitt Rivers Museum. There are lots of walking tours focusing on the Morse mysteries, our favourite was offered through the Oxford Tourist Centre.
- Many of the Midsomer Murders are also filmed in Oxford.
- Sherlock Holmes - lots of filming locations all over England, and of course you can visit the Sherlock Holmes pub in London and the Tower of London (Sign of Four). Conan Doyle used to visit Groombridge House and Gardens in Kent and they have a little room set up with his desk, etc. Some of the film locations we enjoyed include: Baddesley Clinton (Musgrave Ritual), the Bluebell Railway (The Greek Interpreter), Chatsworth (Master Blackmailer), and Haddon Hall (Priory School). Although not connected to Sherlock Holmes, the tour of Victorian streets and homes at the Abbey House Museum in Leeds gives you a good flavour for the times, as do the Jack the Ripper walks in London. London Walks used to do a Sherlock Holmes walk, which I didn't think was that great, I don't know if they still offer it. Conan Doyle used to drink in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.
- John Mortimer's Rumpole mysteries really came alive for us after walking the Inner Temple area, spending an afternoon at the Old Bailey, then retiring to El Vino (Pomeroys) for a meal and a pint (or a bottle of Chateau Thames Embankment).
- Foyle's War is a mystery series that takes place during World War II and was written for television. It takes places in the Hastings area and you can easily see many of the places where the filming takes place. We printed a map off the Internet and spent a lovely day just wandering about.
- Suffolk is home to many writers and mystery film locations including: P.D. James, Margery Allingham and the Lovejoy mysteries.

2. An English Christmas - can see our trip report at:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34961337

We stayed near Stratford, then near Oxford and it was our best Christmas ever.

Rickmav, what a wonderful, thorough reply. Thank you very much.

I have read your trip reports in the past and enjoyed them a lot. You sure know how to travel!

I like having some type of theme, however loose it may be.

My mom was big on themes, which sometimes drove us nuts as kids traveling with her. After she read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" she became obsessed with Michelangelo and searched him out - all over Italy, of course, but also in France (the Louvre, I think) and in Brugges.

I was on an art quest of my own on my last trip to Italy. I had read a book about the female Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi, and looked for her paintings in Rome and Florence. It was a lot harder than I anticipated, especially in the Uffizi, where nobody working there had a clue who I was talking about.

On the same trip one of my friends was on a cookie quest, trying whatever cookie was typical of each Italian region she visited. Now that was fun!

After I had breast cancer I made a point to light candles in front of every Italian and Spanish Madonna I liked the looks of (yes, picky, but I had to feel a connection!) and say a little prayer for myself and all the other survivors I had met.

I have a goal to do at least part of el Camino de Santiago someday, so I read with interest the comments of those, above, who have done this.

Thanks again for so many interesting replies.

Not in Europe, just came back from a 10 days trip around Shikoku (a southern island in Japan). The most popular Theme of travelling around this island is a pilgrimage of 88 temples related to Kukai (774-835AD, a Japanese monk and poet), it's quite often to find white-robed pilgrims on the road or bus.

Another unusual quest in Japan is touring around by rail to try out Ekibendos(lunchboxes from different train stations), there are fanclubs, blogs, TV programmes competitions,books, etc., people seem take this very seriously.

One theme over several trips has been "gothic" churches (cathedrals, abbey churches, etc.) of France and England.

Another theme that can be adapted to nearly any trip has been the quest for the best place to drink a good beer/ale. This is especially fun in Germany, Belgium, and England. This is typically not the major theme for the trip, but serves to help focus the daily gastronomical adventures.

We've used themes, loosely, in some of our travels, searching out--

Fountains in Basel (I also looked--without success--for a wall calendar featuring them);

Cloisters in Florence;

the art of della Robbia, also in Florence.

Different types of mazes/labyrinths in England--there was one in the floor at the entrance to the cathedral in Ely; one in sod in a small town not terribly far from there; and, of course, the hedge maze at Blenheim Palace.