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I’ll see you at the bookshop!
4 Bookshops to Visit in Winchester
Nestled in the heart of Hampshire, Winchester is a beautiful medieval city with heaps of history and plenty of things to see and do. In addition to the wonderful yearly Christmas market, beautiful cathedral and picturesque city centre, there are four wonderful bookshops that are all worth a visit.
Here are four fabulous bookshops that you need to visit during your next trip to Winchester.
Inside Leakey’s Bookshop, Inverness
During my recent trip to Inverness I finally got the chance to visit the magnificent Leakey’s Bookshop!
Based in an old Gaelic church and spread out across two floors, Leakey’s has been in business since 1979 and holds around 100,000 second hand books. If you like a rummage, then you’ll love this place.
The Best Bookshops to Visit in Bath
Over the last few years, Bath has become a literary hotspot. A beautiful city with heaps of history, Bath hosts many of the filming locations for Bridgerton, and is studded with wonderful bookshops.
Today I’m going to take you through the best bookshops to visit during your next trip to this gorgeous literary city.
Where to Spend Your National Book Tokens
I do love a National Book Token. They remind me of my school days, when I would receive a paper token on World Book Day to spend on a free book. Nowadays I love that purchasing a book token allows the recipient to spend it in heaps of independent bookshops all over the UK (as well as Waterstones, of course).
Inside Topping & Company Booksellers, Edinburgh
Welcome to one of my all time favourite bookshops. Topping & Company are a small UK based bookshop chain that started in Ely, Cambridgeshire back in 2002, and has slowly spread across the country and all the way up to Scotland. Edinburgh is the youngest of their four branches, having only opened in late 2019, and it’s also their largest.
Inside the Original Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Blackwell’s is one of Britain’s oldest bookshop chains. Situated in the heart of a historic student city, the original shop is based on Broad Street, Oxford, where it originally opened its doors in 1879. But it isn’t just the shop’s history that makes it worth a visit. The Broad Street shop holds the world record for the largest single room in the world selling books - you’d have no idea from the outside!
A Bookshop Guide to Cecil Court, London
Tucked away just beside London’s well known Leicester Square, Cecil Court is a magical little street lined with gorgeous victorian style bookshops. This street is said to have inspired Diagon Alley from Harry Potter and you can definitely see why – it’s a location that any book lover needs to visit in London. Keep on reading to discover the eclectic range of bookshops that line the glorious Cecil Court. You won’t be disappointed!
Inside The Bookshop, Wigtown
If you’ve read Shaun Blythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller, then you’ll know that The Bookshop is something of a book-shaped celebrity. Nestled in the heart of Scotland’s National Book Town, the shop has around 100,000 books spread across a mile of shelving, making it the country’s largest second hand bookshop. It’s also Wigtown’s oldest bookshop, and is run by author Shaun Blythell who has written two books about his time as a bookseller.
A Bookshop Guide to Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town
I’m about to let you in on what might just be Scotland’s best kept bookish secret. Hidden down in the south west, deep into the county of Dumfries and Galloway, is a little dwelling named Wigtown. Appointed as Scotland’s national book town in 1998, Wigtown is home to a number of wonderful bookshops, all of which come in various shapes and sizes. You’ll find brand new bestsellers next door to piles of secondhand tomes, with a room out the back dedicated to rare and antiquarian titles.
A Bookshop Guide to Edinburgh
For book lovers, Edinburgh is an absolute dream come true.
Not only is it home to a huge number of bookshops, but the city is widely known to be the place where JK Rowling wrote that Harry Potter book, and is filled to the brim with romantic architecture, topped off with a castle that stands watch over it all. If you’re a book lover then this is a place that you need to be.
Here I’ve compiled a guide to the best bookshops in Edinburgh, to help you make the most of your trip and see as many of them as you can. You won’t regret it!
The Best Bookshops to Visit in London
For those with books on the brain, London is an absolute gold mine for finding new reads. With every conceivable type of bookshop out there, we’re really spoilt for choice in this city, and I’ve spent the last few years of my life exploring them as often as I can. Here’s a list of what are, in my opinion, the most gloriously beautiful bookshops that you can find in London. Do leave a comment and let me know if you’ve visited any of them!
Welcome to the Viking Skaga - one of Viking Cruises’ noble river ships. She takes her name from an ancient Norse myth, where the Valkyrie Skaga rode into battle and escorted the dead to Valhalla, before preparing them to fight in the epic battle of Ragnarok.
A relatively new ship, the Viking Skaga only entered the fleet in 2020. At just 410 feet and carrying 168 guests and 48 crew, she was built specifically to sail down the Seine in France, although the specific itinerary will vary depending on the time of year. I was fortunate enough to join the ship for her week long Christmas on the Seine cruise, which starts and ends in Paris, calling at Vernon, Caudebec-en-Caux, Rouen, Honflour (via an excursion) and Les Andelys along the way.