4 Real-Life Locations that Inspired Fictional Places
How many times have you watched a television show and thought, "I wish I could go there!" Fortunately, many fictional places were inspired by real-life places we can visit.
When we traveled to Scotland in 2019, my brother and I were so excited to realize we were just a few miles away from Doune castle, the filming location of Winterfell from the pilot episode of Game of Thrones!
We loved stepping into one of our favorite stories. Read on to learn about four other real-life locations that inspired fictional places.
The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado
Located about an hour from Denver in the Rocky Mountains, The Stanley Hotel is known for the ghosts that call the huge resort home, and for inspiring the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s novel The Shining.
Room 217 is allegedly the scariest of all the rooms at The Stanley Hotel. Guests report that the ghost of a chambermaid, Mrs. Wilson, cleans up the room. When she gets angry at sloppy guests, she pokes them in the ribs while they sleep. Room 217 is also where Stephen King and his wife slept when they visited The Stanley Hotel in 1974. King dreamt that the fire hose hanging outside of his room was chasing his son down the hallway and he awoke startled. He stepped on the balcony to smoke a cigarette and came up with the outline for The Shining, his best-selling novel about a writer who goes insane.
Angel Falls, Venezuela
Buried in the dense jungle of Venezuela's Canaima National Park, the world's tallest waterfall awaits explorers. Angel Falls plunges more than 3,200 feet from a plateau into the Carrao River of Devil's Canyon. This magnificent natural wonder served as the inspiration for Paradise Falls in Disney's animated movie Up, a story about a friendship between a young boy and a widower who fly away in a house powered by hundreds of balloons.
The movie's director, Pete Docter, was brainstorming with his team about places to send the main characters. After watching a documentary by Adrian Warren, the team decided they needed to visit Angel Falls. Warren led a group of six Pixar animators on an expedition to Angel Falls, where they drew pictures of the majestic waterfall, dramatic rock formations, and dense foliage. Angel Falls also served as a backdrop for the novel The Lost World, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1912.
Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany
Visitors to the "Happiest Place on Earth" can see Sleeping Beauty's Castle, which was inspired by Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany. Walt Disney visited the castle on a tour of Europe, and the castle gave Disney the idea for the fairy-tale palace.
King Ludwig II built Neuschwanstein Castle in 1869 near the Bavarian town of Fussen in the Alps. The king, a fan of world-famous composer Richard Wagner, devised the castle in Wagner's honor and designed many of the rooms after characters in Wagner's operas. King Ludwig II only slept in the castle for 11 nights and Richard Wagner never had the chance to visit before he passed.
You can find the castle in other Disney projects too. It also served as the inspiration for Cinderella's castle in the 1950 Disney classic, and when Dick Van Dyke flies his magical car in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, he passes over Neuschwanstein Castle. Today, the castle receives almost 1.5 million visitors each year and remains one of the most popular tourist sites in the world.
The Alcazar of Seville, Spain
There are many locations in the world of Game of Thrones that we’d love to visit, so we had to feature one more here! Situated in the southernmost of the Seven Kingdoms, the Water Gardens of Dorne feature pink marble terraces overlooking fountains and pools, shaded by fragrant blood orange trees.
The Water Gardens might not exist in this world (and they probably wouldn't let us in any way), but the filming location for the Dornish estate used in the HBO TV adaptation is open to visitors. The Alcazar of Seville is a Moorish palace in Southern Spain. The site encompasses formal gardens dotted with pools and fountains, just like the Water Gardens of Dorne.
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