Something must be in the air, because as spring comes around, thoughts clearly turn towards traveling for some. And in this case, they seem to have informed two quite different (and quite good!) interviews from two travel sites. George R.R Martin is certainly no stranger to travel, and in fact is presently in the UK ahead of Eastercon and his appearance at the Bloomsbury Theatre.
First up, Josh Roberts conducts an excellent interview with George for Smarter Travel. As noted at the top of the interview, it has some major spoilers for all five novels in the series, but it’s noted when they’re crossing into the spoiler section. Here’s a favorite part from it:
“A particular real-world influence on the Doom of Valyria was something from the history of New Zealand—the volcanic eruptions that destroyed the Pink and White Terraces. They were a formation of rocks that were considered one of the seven beautiful wonders of the world in the Victorian period. People traveled from all over the world to visit the Pink and White Terraces, which were these beautiful stone terraces where volcanic hot springs water would flow out from the top. It was a series of natural pools at lower levels, and as the water flowed from one pool to another down the side of this mountain, it would cool so the terraces at the top had really hot pools, and at the bottom had warm pools.
“They were very scenic, but the whole area was volcanic. One day it just all exploded—the entire area went up, and fortunately it was not a heavily habitable area, so there weren’t a lot of people there.”
George first hinted at his visit having inspired his vision of a particular location many years ago, and now we know what it is.
The other interview is a recent one from the well-known travel guide, Fodor’s, at Fodors.com. It’s in a similar vein, but I do love the fact that George would like to see the famed Crac des Chevaliers—it’s a castle I’ve always wanted to visit myself, and happens to be on a scale that would make it fit right into Westeros without a problem. As an added bonus, Fodors is running a sweepstakes to win copies of A Clash of Kings in print and in audio format (read by the excellent Roy Dotrice, aka Wisdom Hallyne in this new season of the show), signed by GRRM.
Both interviews are now also linked in our So Spake Martin collection of correspondence, chat transcripts, interviews, and more. Feel free to browse!