Arthur Conan Doyle · 1893 · global

The most famous adventure of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle's great detective: his flight from Professor Moriarty across Europe to the Reichenbach Falls, his apparent death there, and the three secret years of the Great Hiatus that followed. This route traces Holmes from Baker Street through the roundabout escape to Switzerland, then on through his hidden wanderings in Tibet, Persia, Mecca and Khartoum, and home again at last to London.

1. 1
   London

   From their rooms at 221B Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes reveals to Watson that he has at last cornered Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, whose vast criminal web is about to be swept up by the police. But Moriarty has sworn to destroy him first, and Holmes proposes the two of them slip out of England together until the net is drawn tight.

2. 2
   Newhaven

   To shake off the pursuit, Holmes leads Watson on a deliberately roundabout flight, slipping off their train at Canterbury and watching Moriarty's special engine roar past in chase. Doubling back across country, they make for the small Sussex port of Newhaven rather than the obvious crossing at Dover.

3. 3
   Dieppe

   From Newhaven the pair cross the Channel to Dieppe, setting foot on the Continent and, for the moment, leaving the professor behind. Holmes is grimly certain, however, that a mind as formidable as Moriarty's will not be thrown off the scent for long.

4. 4
   Strasbourg

   Travelling by way of Brussels and Luxembourg, the two friends reach Strasbourg, where a telegram overtakes them: the London police have netted the whole gang but for Moriarty himself, who has slipped through their fingers and is now hunting Holmes across Europe. Holmes urges Watson to turn back, but the doctor will not leave his friend.

5. 5
   Reichenbach Falls

   Wandering up the Valley of the Rhone and over the snowbound Gemmi Pass by way of Interlaken, they come at last to Meiringen and the tremendous Reichenbach Falls. Lured apart by a false summons, Holmes and Moriarty meet alone at the edge of the abyss, and Watson returns to find only Holmes's farewell note and two sets of footprints leading to the brink, with none coming back.

6. 6
   Lhasa

   In truth Holmes survived the struggle, sending Moriarty alone into the torrent, and seized the chance to vanish from the world. After a brief flight to Florence he wanders for two years in Tibet as the Norwegian explorer Sigerson, even spending some days in Lhasa as a guest of the head Lama, while all of London believes him dead.

7. 7
   Persia

   From the roof of the world Holmes makes his way west again, passing through Persia in the course of his long and secret travels, a country then caught up in the imperial Great Game and little known to Europeans, gathering experiences he will keep largely to himself ever after.

8. 8
   Mecca

   Continuing through the lands of Arabia, Holmes looks in at the holy city of Mecca, forbidden to unbelievers, a feat of disguise and daring worthy of the great traveller-spies of his age, such as Richard Burton before him.

9. 9
   Suakin

   Holmes crosses the Red Sea to the Sudanese shore at Suakin.

10. 10
    Khartoum

    Crossing the Red Sea into Africa, Holmes pays a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, in the Sudan, and quietly conveys the results of that meeting to the British Foreign Office before turning, at last, toward home.

11. 11
    Alexandria

    North through the Sudan and Egypt to Alexandria and the sea.

12. 12
    Montpellier

    Back on French soil, Holmes settles for some months in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the south of France, absorbed in a research into coal-tar derivatives, his long wandering very nearly at an end.

13. 13
    London

    Word that Moriarty's last lieutenant, the deadly Colonel Moran, is still at large draws Holmes home to London. He reveals himself to a thunderstruck Watson, and the empty years close as they began, in the old sitting room at Baker Street, with the game once more afoot.