The Well Rounded Woman admires Harry Potter as much as the next lady. But after ten years and 4000 pages, she has had about enough of the boy-wizard’s novel exploits. Being quite magical herself, she doesn’t disdain magic per se. Nevertheless, she is troubled by the way he seems to have cast a spell rendering the heroines from other classic children’s books invisible. Master Potter’s unprecedented popularity has essentially imprisoned Eloise in the Plaza and left Laura Ingalls hiding in her little house. Even Pippi Longstocking (the world’s strongest girl) is no match for the powerful Potter. That fact makes our peripatetic page-turner pine for the female protagonists she loved in her not-so-distant youth; and, combining a passion for books with a penchant for travel, the Well Rounded Woman knows exactly where to find them.
Heidi.
The Well Rounded Woman’s response to Johanna Spyri’s 1880 classic varies. Sometimes the book compels her to rhapsodize over the restorative power of the Alps. Other times it makes her want to yodel at goats. Happily she can do both in the Swiss canton of Graubünden, Heidi’s home turf. The Well Rounded Woman starts, as the book did, on the cobbled streets of Maienfeld, then proceeds uphill to Heidihaus, a hands-on museum decked out like the titular girl’s residence. Although souvenirs are sold on-site, this place—in keeping with Heidi’s healthful persona—emphasizes hiking over hawking. Indeed, it is reached via a ninety-minute interpretative trail that loops from Maienfeld up “through green fields dotted with trees.” Another route continues to a mountain hut where a gentleman resembling Heidi’s gruff grandpa awaits. If the Well Rounded Woman feels flush (instead of merely flushed) after the trek, she retires to Grand Hotel Quellenhof: a nearby favorite of Spyri’s. But if the $700+ nightly rate seems impossibly steep, she beds down in a barn instead for $16–$24, courtesy of Switzerland’s Sleep in the Straw program.
Anne of Green Gables.
Since the Well Rounded Woman was weaned on “Anne with an E,” Canada’s Prince Edward Island seems like hallowed ground. After all, countless area attractions are devoted to author Lucy Maud Montgomery (who was born and buried there) and to the iconoclastic orphan she introduced in 1908. A proper “Anne” pilgrimage invariably begins at Green Gables itself: the restored 19th-century farmhouse in Cavendish upon which the redheaded heroine’s adoptive home was based. Next, following the road to Avonlea, our tome-loving traveler visits Anne’s re-created hometown where costumed characters chat up kindred spirits and downing raspberry cordials is de rigueur. Booking a room at Dalvay-by-the-Sea, twenty-five minutes away, is another must because aside from having its own impressive gables, this sprawling Victorian “cottage” was a filming locale for the popular Anne movies (half-board rooms start at $178). Before calling it a night, however, the Well Rounded Woman heads to the island’s capital, Charlottetown, to buy tickets (and tissues!) for Anne of Green Gables, The Musical. Alternately silly and overtly sentimental, it’s played to packed houses since 1965.
