Is a fictional world really better?

Found a wonderful blog today . . . http://franceshunter.wordpress.com (which was a meme from http://imlostinbooks.blogspot.com) where she commented on three fictional worlds in which she would like to live.  Hers were exceptional as she is a historical fiction author and had steeped herself in the worlds of her research and writing.  Equally interesting were the comments, with many opting for fantasy worlds and in particular Narnia.

Renaissance Florence

My choices were innumerable but I limited it to three.  Sixteenth century Europe as per Dorothy Dunnett’s superlative House of Niccolo series, where I must gird my loins and many other parts to put up with the conditions of the time.
The next was Green Gables. I shall never forget Anne’s reaction as Matthew drove her through the avenue of cherry blossom for the first time.  Nor any other part of Prince Edward Island as portrayed by LM.Montgomery. There’s probably dozens of others.  The Shire from LOTR and The Hobbit, Camelot from any Arthurian legend.  Sherwood with Robin . . . oh and Guy of Gisborne too as long as it’s Richard Armitage in black leathers!
But my real third has to be the fantasy world of my own creation. I have spent many hours, days, months and maybe even years compiling a memory bank of those features of the world that inspire me the most, both in terms of beauty and ugliness.  The world of Eirie is as real as our own world, with an overlay of fabled beings.  Trevallyn is wooded and green with copses, rills and dark and troubling lakes.  The Raj is a land where the Symmer wind seers the brain and marble porticos shade old men playing shatranj and women pull their saris over their heads against the dust and merciless sun.  High above Ahmadabad and Fahsi, mountains of rock and shale spill into a river as wide and self-important as the Ganges.  Then there is Veniche  . . .  she drapes herself along the darkly dangerous canals of the laguna, her decadent architecture a metaphor for life in the city.  And the Pymm Archipelago is a string of islands so different from each other, it’s as if Aine the Mother was determined to break the mould a dozen times over.
Most recently, as The Shifu Cloth reaches 52,000 words, the Han feeds me with titbits of its silk-bound existence.
In addition, if I make it to Book Five and the story of Gervais the Cartographer, my world shall be found to be round and to be so much more than just five provinces.
Being a part of fantasy worlds, as a voyeur or as a participant is the stuff that adventures are made of and I must thank Frances Hunter for sending me off on this indulgent tangent when I should be putting that book-trailer together.
More about that later.
Oh . . . and yes, family is still speaking . . . just!