This thread is related to "Flesh&Blood" Pirate Series Reading Club 🏴☠ ⛵
Last year I travelled to one of the Flesh&Blood locations and took a bunch of pictures. This year I will visit a few more locations. To make these posts more easily findable, I figured I’d put them in their own thread. Others can also add their pictures of course!
Coming soon…
Christopher Marlowe
William Shakespeare
Volume 2 - La Rochelle
First of all, it’s a beautiful little old city, unfortunately nowadays surrounded by lots of industrial complexes… that’s the price you pay for being easily accessible by ship, I guess.
Anyways, here are my impressions:
In Chapter 3, Jeoffrey and Kaito arrive at La Rochelle and hear a bell. Jeoffrey explains that this bell is in a tower which is part of the castle walls.
Unfortunately, those castle walls were destroyed in 1628, after (the catholic) Louis XIII had laid a devastating siege to La Rochelle and finally took it. To prevent a rebellion from ever happening in La Rochelle again, all fortifications were destroyed except for the harbour towers that you can see in the photo. So Jeoffrey and Kaito must have seen these two towers as well.
(don’t worry, that’s not a graveyard in the foreground - I guess it is supposed to break the waves at high tide)
Jeoffrey and Kaito are picked up by a ferry boat and brought to the quai. In the harbour there was some information on display, in particular this oil picture which (I guess) shows ferry boats like the one that they used:
This must be the place where they hopped into the water in order to escape Vicente.
I do hope for them that it was high tide, as the same location looks like this at low tide:
They were pointed to their lodging by a fishmonger; they must have been at the quai when they talked to him. He told them to walk up the road until the end, and the last house would be it.
In the previous picture you can see that there are only two streets that lead away from the quai: one in the foreground (where the red umbrellas are) and one in the background, where the tower with the gate is. I think they might have mentioned the gate, therefore I decided to try my luck with the first street.
It looks like this:
and a bit further up:
This is the last house at the end of the road:
I tried to find a date written on any of the houses in the area, but I had no luck. Personally I don’t think this house is old enough, but who knows?
… between the mainland and the Ile de Ré:
Not really sure how well you can imagine this… The picture is taken from Ile de Ré, looking towards the mainland. In the foreground you can see an angler, for comparison of sizes. The structures across the strait are part of the industrial harbour and probably artificial, so they would not have been there back in the day, is my take. To the right there is the Bay of Biscay and also La Rochelle’s old harbour.
I mean, it doesn’t look super impressively narrow but with Jeoffrey’s sailing maneouver of sticking close to the coast, this must have been quite the spectacle, I’m sure.
Here is that scenery on Google Maps:
I took the picture roughly from where the grey marker is, looking across the strait to the industrial harbour. The old harbour of La Rochelle is to the very right of the pic, it’s the small diamond-shaped basin.
Now I’m fully aware that I’m talking about fictional characters here, but it was great fun walking around and trying to imagine them having been there 
Volume 4 - Christopher Marlowe:
I started my trip from Dover on a morning ferry and decided to have breakfast in Canterbury - it’s a small medieval town, and I purely wanted to go for general sightseeing purposes. Then I came across this:
When I approached the building, I noticed this statue in front of it:
And the three sides of the statue were decorated with these smaller statues:
(Christopher Marlowe * born Canterbury 1564 * died Deptford 1593)
(This statuette represents Sir Henry Irving in the character of Marlowe’s Tamburlain)
(The statuette above represents James K. Hackett in the character of Marlowe’s Edward II)
(The statuette above represents Sir Johnston Forbes Robertson in the character of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus)
Volume 4 - William Shakespeare:
This town does not appear in Flesh&Blood, but William Shakespeare does, so I took the liberty to go there in the sake of his memory.
The man himself:
His birthhouse:
His school:
A Tudor-era cobbled street:
And of course we find him there again:
Also, I grabbed the chance and went to The Royal Shakespeare Theatre:
I watched Cymbeline and loved it! Admittedly my first Shakespeare play ever. And while they kept the original words, the acting was so amazing that it was far from being monotonous and boring. It was easy to understand, witty and even funny at times!
The theatre is surprisingly small, as you can see, and the stage is embedded right into the audience. The staging felt very modern (e.g. there was no curtain, and all changes of stage decoration were done during the play - lighting was used to support this beautifully) and the piece fitted into this perfectly. The actors were amazing, and I admired their articulation training. They even sang at times! That was not everybody’s native gift, admittedly, but they managed pretty well.
Definitely recommend if you happen to be in the area.
So, many awesome pictures! 
You’re absolutely spoiling us with these posts! 
Glad you had fun watching Cymbeline. Sounds like a really cool experience. Also, Shakesbeer! 
Was it any good? I confess to not being too fond of bitter beer. ^^’
It was way better than “bitter beer” sounds - not really bitter at all. (But then again, the Dutch Bitterballen are not bitter either )
I bet after a couple of pints, you’d turn into a poet if you kept drinking that stuff. 
Well, I didn’t witness any poetry, but after a few hours in the pub with @NicoleIsEnough I really want to get better at reading in Japanese so I can read Flesh&Blood too!
Sneaking in a new F&B thread under my nose @NicoleIsEnough; I’m on to you! (Also, I linked this thread in the home F&B since I didn’t see anything there. Your pictures deserve to be shared!)
A new convert, I see. 
Agent Nicole has been doing good work, apparently.
Glad to have you onboard! 
I with you luck and look forward to seeing your comments in the future! ^>^
Oh great, thank you! I meant to do that but you know, I don’t really get anything done except travelling right now
But! I managed to read some Flesh&Blood in Land’s End and Lizard Point and Buckland Abbey which was truly magical
Pictures incoming soon.
You gotta do what you gotta do, right? 
Sounds like you’re having a blast! Just enjoy yourself! <3<3<3
