Journey to the source: Torquay and Greenway

On the advice of her older sister, or out of boredom, Agatha took a pen, dipped it in ink and began to piece together the image of the iconic hero Hercule Paurot. An ancestral home where Agatha wrote the first lines of his novels, has not survived. Now it is just a blue plaque. But the Torquay City Museum has a permanent exhibition. The exhibits and photos there illustrate the everyday life and creative aspects of the writer's biography. In addition to archival snapshots, the museum displays manuscripts and notes, as well as wardrobe items from the master detective's shoulder. The interiors of the museum are also flooded with furniture and other props that were used in the filming of Hercule Poirot.

The young writer's work was interrupted by the First World War. A naturally kind-hearted girl volunteered to work in a military hospital, performing the duties of a nurse. She was then promoted to pharmacist. This experience came in handy for Agatha in writing novels, where some 83 murders were committed through poisoning. It was during this period that the beautiful Englishwoman met pilot Colonel Archibald Christie. In 1914 she married the young man despite his status as an incorrigible ladies' man. The couple honeymooned at The Grand Hotel, which still exists and is available to the public. Fans of Agatha Christie's novels regularly come to Torquay and book months in advance the apartment where the writer experienced the joys of first love.

Agatha Christie's magnificent Greenway estate is located on the River Dart in Devon. It's where the queen of the detective spent every summer with her family, hosting guests and, of course, writing books. It was also the setting for film adaptations of her novels. For example, Greenway became the setting for "The Dead Man's Folly" - the estate is depicted in the third series of the 13th season of the series about Hercule Poirot.
The mansion itself is beautiful both on television and in person. In 2009 it opened as a museum, showcasing items that belonged to the writer and her husband: a collection of clocks, ceramics, figurines and crockery which Agatha Christie collected. Family portraits and photographs hang on the walls. There is even a grand piano, which she loved to play.

Incidentally, you can get to Agatha Christie's family estate via the route of Hercule Paurot himself. In 1844 a new railway line was laid from Torquay to Kingsguare. It was on the trains of the Darmunt Line that the mustachioed detective travelled in Christie's detective novels Alphabet Murder and Dead Man's Folly.