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A Florence Diary
In August 1947, Diana Athill travelled to Florence by the Golden Arrow train for a two-week holiday with her good friend Pen. In this playful diary of that trip, Athill recorded her observations and adventures - eating with (and paid for by) the hopeful men they meet on their travels, admiring architectural sights, sampling delicious pastries, eking out their budget and getting into scrapes. Written with an arresting immediacy and infused with an exhilarating joie de vivre, A Florence Diary is a bright, colourful evocation of a time long lost, and a vibrant portrait of a city that will be deliciously familiar to any contemporary traveller.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2016
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663 people want to read
About the author
Diana Athill
35 books227 followersDiana Athill was a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company André Deutsch Ltd.
She was born in Norfolk in 1917 and educated at home until she was fourteen. She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and graduated in 1939. She spent the war years working at the BBC Overseas Service in the News Information Department. After the war she met André Deutsch and fell into publishing. She worked as an editor, first at Allan Wingate and then at André Deutsch, until her retirement at the age of 75 in 1993.
Her books include An Unavoidable Delay, a collection of short stories published in 1962 and two 'documentary' books After A Funeral and Make Believe. Stet is a memoir of Diana Athill's fifty-year career in publishing. Granta has also reissued a memoir Instead of a Letter and her only novel Don't Look at Me Like That. She lived in Primrose Hill in London.
She was born in Norfolk in 1917 and educated at home until she was fourteen. She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and graduated in 1939. She spent the war years working at the BBC Overseas Service in the News Information Department. After the war she met André Deutsch and fell into publishing. She worked as an editor, first at Allan Wingate and then at André Deutsch, until her retirement at the age of 75 in 1993.
Her books include An Unavoidable Delay, a collection of short stories published in 1962 and two 'documentary' books After A Funeral and Make Believe. Stet is a memoir of Diana Athill's fifty-year career in publishing. Granta has also reissued a memoir Instead of a Letter and her only novel Don't Look at Me Like That. She lived in Primrose Hill in London.
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December 25, 2016
'A Florence Diary' by Diana Athill
4 stars
If you want a book that is a tourist guide to Florence, and mentions nowhere else, this is not it.
If you want a book where the author mixes only with 'ordinary folk' and not with the wealthy and/or famous, this is not it.
But - if you want a book with fabulous and precise use of language and vocabulary; that creates wonderful images in your mind; that within 80 pages gives you an immense amount of pleasure; and that makes you hope that, when you reach the age that Diana Athill is currently (99 years old), you are as interesting and lively as she is; then this is the book for you.
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January 4, 2017From what little I have read by Diana Athill it seems she has led a really interesting life. I would be happy to be seated next to her at a dinner party and imagine she must have some really wonderful stories to tell. As a matter of fact she shares a few of those stories in her travel memoir, A Florence Diary, which was published last year and which I mostly read in one sitting yesterday. In 1947 she and a cousin traveled to Florence and her mother urged her to keep a travel diary, and happily she did so. What better way to kick off the new reading year than with a short travel memoir of sunny Italy--an exotic journey, a literary journey chronicling her fortnight in Italy, and for me a metaphorical journey to inspire this year's reading--for me, books truly are a journey.
This compact little book, illustrated with black and while photos of Florence ca. 1950, is an absolute delight to read. She captures an era of travel that has since disappeared, when it was relatively cheap and easy to catch a train, at a time when travel was only beginning to be accessible to the multitudes. Travel now is TSA body scans and no leg room on flights where everyone is crushed together, where travelers are nickel and dimed and you're lucky not to miss your connection. In 1947 it was still romantic. You might meet a handsome Italian count who helps you along the way, dashing off up a sidestreet in Milan so he can send flowers to you at your next destination.
Athill would have been about thirty when she made this journey. This was the first time she had been to Florence and the only time she ever kept a diary. She traveled with her cousin Pen, with whom she had nothing in common yet she was the best traveling companion that could be had and they got along marvelously. I find a lot of truth in what Athill has to say about her travels, "What I was after was not a shared experience but the excitement of discovery. I was hungry for the thrill of being elsewhere." And it is only 'elsewhere' where one can
" . . . wake up on a train that had stopped in the middle of the night, push a blind aside, and see a lantern carried along an unknown platform by a man talking to another in an unknown language--those voices, the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness giving you such a tingle of excitement."
I've known that tingle and traveled by train and felt that elsewhere myself. There is little else like it save for a really good book that can at least transport you 'elsewhere' in your imagination. And I agree that traveling alone is a way you can "connect with strangers much better", than traveling with a companion.
Diana and Pen left Victoria station early August 24 on the Golden Arrow. She checked her luggage all the way through taking only her hatbox and a bag "with masses of food for the journey". That hatbox will come in handy for full trains (so she can sit on it), but the food was not as necessary (even giving as much of it away as she can to fellow passengers) since Alfonso the count so generously paid for many of her meals along the way.
I had a chuckle when late in the diary she notes that "all I seem to have written about is pastries", and then chuckled again as I look back over what I marked with my pencil--lots of those mentions of pastries! As a matter of fact I think I need to share a few excerpts--they are mouth watering in their way, though I promise they are not all going to be about pastries. A journey to Florence indeed is special where "everything is so beautiful that even not 'doing' anything special is marvellous."
***
"Then a most splendid tea, with ices and sponge fingers and little iced cakes that melted in the mouth--one of the things we do saying, 'Just this once'."
That after a visit to the Accademia di Belle Arti where they saw sculptures by Michelangelo, a collection of primitives, two "dream-like" Botticellis and an exhibition of pictures that had been damaged in the war but were in the process of being restored.
***
"We had been told that the food here in the pensione would be solid but not exciting, but we find it very delicious indeed, and most copious, and are stuffing to capacity. The best part of the food, though, is the cakery part. The pastry shops are full of the most miraculous little objects, that are as exotic as sweets and not much bigger, but more varied in taste and texture. I could eat them for ever. We never quite know what we will get, either. For instance, when yesterday we ordered (or thought we ordered) chocolate to drink, with cream on the top, we got an immense double ice, chocolate and vanilla, which was scrumptious."
***
"I paid my bill this evening so as to know how I stand for last-minute buys and changing lire to francs etc. tomorrow, and find I have ten of my thirty pounds left. That means that including the first three days in the expensive hotel, a fortnight has cost me twenty pounds all in (not counting fare) and that of the pensione has cost just about fifteen shillings a day, including all meals. I've had three baths and three bottles of Chianti (at one shilling each and three shillings respectively) extra, and they add fifteen per cent for service, and a tax of nearly thirty per cent, for séjour, which they all have to pay for each guest. I shall buy something nice tomorrow--nylons or a handbag or something."
Yes, my jaw dropped at those numbers, too. I wonder if it was really as cheap as it sounds to me, or if the amount was relative and more expensive than I imagine.
A good start to the reading year. This will be published in the US in April. You can find it already in the UK (where I ordered my copy since I was impatient and couldn't wait). In case you want a companion read or a similar sort of read I can highly recommend Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough.
This compact little book, illustrated with black and while photos of Florence ca. 1950, is an absolute delight to read. She captures an era of travel that has since disappeared, when it was relatively cheap and easy to catch a train, at a time when travel was only beginning to be accessible to the multitudes. Travel now is TSA body scans and no leg room on flights where everyone is crushed together, where travelers are nickel and dimed and you're lucky not to miss your connection. In 1947 it was still romantic. You might meet a handsome Italian count who helps you along the way, dashing off up a sidestreet in Milan so he can send flowers to you at your next destination.
Athill would have been about thirty when she made this journey. This was the first time she had been to Florence and the only time she ever kept a diary. She traveled with her cousin Pen, with whom she had nothing in common yet she was the best traveling companion that could be had and they got along marvelously. I find a lot of truth in what Athill has to say about her travels, "What I was after was not a shared experience but the excitement of discovery. I was hungry for the thrill of being elsewhere." And it is only 'elsewhere' where one can
" . . . wake up on a train that had stopped in the middle of the night, push a blind aside, and see a lantern carried along an unknown platform by a man talking to another in an unknown language--those voices, the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness giving you such a tingle of excitement."
I've known that tingle and traveled by train and felt that elsewhere myself. There is little else like it save for a really good book that can at least transport you 'elsewhere' in your imagination. And I agree that traveling alone is a way you can "connect with strangers much better", than traveling with a companion.
Diana and Pen left Victoria station early August 24 on the Golden Arrow. She checked her luggage all the way through taking only her hatbox and a bag "with masses of food for the journey". That hatbox will come in handy for full trains (so she can sit on it), but the food was not as necessary (even giving as much of it away as she can to fellow passengers) since Alfonso the count so generously paid for many of her meals along the way.
I had a chuckle when late in the diary she notes that "all I seem to have written about is pastries", and then chuckled again as I look back over what I marked with my pencil--lots of those mentions of pastries! As a matter of fact I think I need to share a few excerpts--they are mouth watering in their way, though I promise they are not all going to be about pastries. A journey to Florence indeed is special where "everything is so beautiful that even not 'doing' anything special is marvellous."
***
"Then a most splendid tea, with ices and sponge fingers and little iced cakes that melted in the mouth--one of the things we do saying, 'Just this once'."
That after a visit to the Accademia di Belle Arti where they saw sculptures by Michelangelo, a collection of primitives, two "dream-like" Botticellis and an exhibition of pictures that had been damaged in the war but were in the process of being restored.
***
"We had been told that the food here in the pensione would be solid but not exciting, but we find it very delicious indeed, and most copious, and are stuffing to capacity. The best part of the food, though, is the cakery part. The pastry shops are full of the most miraculous little objects, that are as exotic as sweets and not much bigger, but more varied in taste and texture. I could eat them for ever. We never quite know what we will get, either. For instance, when yesterday we ordered (or thought we ordered) chocolate to drink, with cream on the top, we got an immense double ice, chocolate and vanilla, which was scrumptious."
***
"I paid my bill this evening so as to know how I stand for last-minute buys and changing lire to francs etc. tomorrow, and find I have ten of my thirty pounds left. That means that including the first three days in the expensive hotel, a fortnight has cost me twenty pounds all in (not counting fare) and that of the pensione has cost just about fifteen shillings a day, including all meals. I've had three baths and three bottles of Chianti (at one shilling each and three shillings respectively) extra, and they add fifteen per cent for service, and a tax of nearly thirty per cent, for séjour, which they all have to pay for each guest. I shall buy something nice tomorrow--nylons or a handbag or something."
Yes, my jaw dropped at those numbers, too. I wonder if it was really as cheap as it sounds to me, or if the amount was relative and more expensive than I imagine.
A good start to the reading year. This will be published in the US in April. You can find it already in the UK (where I ordered my copy since I was impatient and couldn't wait). In case you want a companion read or a similar sort of read I can highly recommend Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough.
June 26, 2017
This was a quick, easy read. There were a few things that annoyed me about it, but it was so short that you didn't really get a chance to really accumulate any resentment, so it's very fleeting annoyance. Largely it's cultural differences, I think, which was also a positive thing. This was a quick glimpse into another time and culture, and it was really fascinating in some ways. I was appalled by how quickly they met and became intimate friends with men while travelling on trains--exchanging addresses and travelling with them for long stretches and being alone with them?! Two women, by themselves? But in that time, this was safe, and nothing bad happened to them. The men were gentlemen who paid for their lunches and escorted them to their hotels or wherever they were going and deposited them safely, and went on their way without any further expectations. It was a whole other world, where "stranger danger" wasn't a consideration, apparently. I kept waiting for something horrible to happen to them with these men they'd just met, but nothing ever did, and I was left with amazed relief. There were other fascinating things like that, but that stuck out to me the most.
I'd recommend it, since it's interesting and very quick. Even if you don't like it, you'll only have wasted about an hour on it, depending on your reading speed, so it's worth giving a shot.
I'd recommend it, since it's interesting and very quick. Even if you don't like it, you'll only have wasted about an hour on it, depending on your reading speed, so it's worth giving a shot.
June 19, 2017
Why do we chose the books we chose? Obviously there are various reasons. A nice cover. The book is short just when we need a short book. Someone has recommended it to us. We have seen it in the local bookshop and it looks interesting.
I chose A Florence Diary by Diana Athill for the first two reasons. I immediately loved the cover. The woman on the front reminds me of a woman I know and she is 91 and still kicking just like Athill who is 100. I also noticed that it is only 65 pages long. The price on the book was too steep for my budget but luckily my local library bought it.
This is the diary of a trip Athill took in August 1947 and her account is a joy to read. As she says in her introduction:
“Did I ever thank my darling Ma for asking me to record it? I don’t think I did but I am truly grateful to her: I never would have forgotten it, but I couldn’t have remembered it so well without the diary. May you all have lots of holiday as good as that one.
Bon voyage!”
This lovely wish sets the tone for the book and there are some delightful passages interposed with photos of various places taken around the same time or close to it. Diana and her cousin Pen are lucky enough to pick up several men who pay for several meals:
“Shortly after Milan I had dinner with (and on) Alfonso. Pen came along and joined us after a while, because a certain amount of vino was circulating in her carriage by that time, and the stout gentleman kept inviting her to sit on his knee.”
Occasionally the odd comment reminds the reader that is is 1947:
“The shops have heavenly things in them - fairly cheap compared to England, but not very. The recovery is astonishing. There didn’t seem to be a bombed building in Milan upon which they weren’t working, and they had got it back much nearer to normal than London.”
Here is one of my favourite passages:
“We went to Fiesole after lunch, complete with painting things, on a very full tram. The view was misty today, and so enormous that it daunted even Pen, so that we never got down to trying to draw it. We went instead to the Roman amphitheatre, which looks out away from Florence, and is quiet and smells of thyme, and we lay on the grass and relaxed.”
Oh to have such a holiday! Reading this little diary is the next best thing and for this reader has been a great introduction to Athill. I’m picking up her memoir Yesterday Morning tomorrow - Athill’s account of her childhood - England in the 1920s, seen from the vantage point of England in 2001. Can’t wait.
I chose A Florence Diary by Diana Athill for the first two reasons. I immediately loved the cover. The woman on the front reminds me of a woman I know and she is 91 and still kicking just like Athill who is 100. I also noticed that it is only 65 pages long. The price on the book was too steep for my budget but luckily my local library bought it.
This is the diary of a trip Athill took in August 1947 and her account is a joy to read. As she says in her introduction:
“Did I ever thank my darling Ma for asking me to record it? I don’t think I did but I am truly grateful to her: I never would have forgotten it, but I couldn’t have remembered it so well without the diary. May you all have lots of holiday as good as that one.
Bon voyage!”
This lovely wish sets the tone for the book and there are some delightful passages interposed with photos of various places taken around the same time or close to it. Diana and her cousin Pen are lucky enough to pick up several men who pay for several meals:
“Shortly after Milan I had dinner with (and on) Alfonso. Pen came along and joined us after a while, because a certain amount of vino was circulating in her carriage by that time, and the stout gentleman kept inviting her to sit on his knee.”
Occasionally the odd comment reminds the reader that is is 1947:
“The shops have heavenly things in them - fairly cheap compared to England, but not very. The recovery is astonishing. There didn’t seem to be a bombed building in Milan upon which they weren’t working, and they had got it back much nearer to normal than London.”
Here is one of my favourite passages:
“We went to Fiesole after lunch, complete with painting things, on a very full tram. The view was misty today, and so enormous that it daunted even Pen, so that we never got down to trying to draw it. We went instead to the Roman amphitheatre, which looks out away from Florence, and is quiet and smells of thyme, and we lay on the grass and relaxed.”
Oh to have such a holiday! Reading this little diary is the next best thing and for this reader has been a great introduction to Athill. I’m picking up her memoir Yesterday Morning tomorrow - Athill’s account of her childhood - England in the 1920s, seen from the vantage point of England in 2001. Can’t wait.
July 8, 2018
Absolutely loved this little book and thrilled to know of this writer now! Diana Athill, at the age of 30, spent 2 weeks in Florence, Italy, with her cousin, Pen, in August/September 1947. Diana's mother had suggested her daughter keep a diary of the trip and this little travel vignette is the result. Athill, now 101, published this a year or so ago and it is such a delight to read and be swept away to Italy of the 40s, after the war. The travel essay shares who they met on the trip, what they ate, where they went, what they saw ... and typical travel adeventures/frustrations that happened as do happen on holidays, no matter the year. Wonderful read from beginning to end. Black and white pictures included that capsule the era of Italy shared in its pages.
October 20, 2024
4- This is a nice little (really, very short) travel book. I went through an intense Athill phase some years ago and I still like her a lot, although I can get annoyed with certain things. It’s the same here, but nothing is (at least for me) serious enough to ruin the experience.
I picked it up rather randomly in the National Gallery shop in London - a pity that I didn’t know it existed when I was in Florence this spring.
I picked it up rather randomly in the National Gallery shop in London - a pity that I didn’t know it existed when I was in Florence this spring.
December 16, 2016
This is a very short, but lovely book about a trip to Florence. It can be read in an hour so but evokes holidays, sunshine, Florence and youth....what is not to like!
December 28, 2018
When Diana Athill was given a trip to Florence to celebrate the end of World War II, her mother said, ‘Keep a diary for me,’ and she did. Many years later, Diana, celebrating the importance of holidays, published it.
In A Florence Diary, we read how she and her cousin Pen, who was just as enthusiastic and fun loving, spent two weeks exploring Florence individually, together, and with new friends. During the years I studied art history, Florence came up over and over, and it was magical to explore it with Diana and Pen who were every bit as interested in art as I.
At the end of the diary, thirty year old Diana concludes, ‘I really don’t think I have ever had such a lovely fortnight in my life.’
I don’t know much about Diana Athill and what little I know is not positive. Therefore I cannot recommend her other writings, but this slim volume was a treat.
In A Florence Diary, we read how she and her cousin Pen, who was just as enthusiastic and fun loving, spent two weeks exploring Florence individually, together, and with new friends. During the years I studied art history, Florence came up over and over, and it was magical to explore it with Diana and Pen who were every bit as interested in art as I.
At the end of the diary, thirty year old Diana concludes, ‘I really don’t think I have ever had such a lovely fortnight in my life.’
I don’t know much about Diana Athill and what little I know is not positive. Therefore I cannot recommend her other writings, but this slim volume was a treat.
June 11, 2022
picked up a copy of the newer edition which comes illustrated with photography by Bischof, Achille Villani among others, that said I'm not certain if the original ed included these. A personal little book of her trip in 1947 aged 30 of her holiday to Florence via train/ferry. enjoyed being briefly transported by this which led me to some other books, others by her and also Beer in the Snooker Club by Ghali . I guess the Italian read I'm waiting out for is A Silenced Shared by Romano, not much longer.
January 26, 2023
M'interessava llegir-lo perquè m'interessa tot el que tingui a veure amb Florència. També pel valor documental que podia tenir, ja que va ser escrit el 1947. Ara bé, les descripcions són pobres i literàriament tampoc no m'ha fet ni fred ni calor; més aviat m'ha servit per veure el model de turisme banal que practicava i practica la burgesia britànica.
Per posar-ne un exemple, llegiu-ne aquest fragment: «Tothom sembla content de veure anglesos, i es mostren molt amables i encantadors. Ni tan sols els venedors ambulants són una molèstia».
Per posar-ne un exemple, llegiu-ne aquest fragment: «Tothom sembla content de veure anglesos, i es mostren molt amables i encantadors. Ni tan sols els venedors ambulants són una molèstia».
April 15, 2021
I fail to find the purported gem-like qualities of this short travel diary. I had expected a beautifully written memoir on the experience of being a young woman in Florence on holiday after WW2. Instead it is truly a list of places seen with the odd bit of travel difficulties thrown in. I assume this ridiculously slim book was published purely on the author's fame in literary circles. Still, it's too short to be really offensive, so I shan't go lower than three stars.
May 29, 2020
The author's diary of a two-week trip to see Florence in 1947
This short book is charming, just like the rest of the author's books. If you are a large fan of Diana Athill, read it and enjoy her view of a delightful vacation. If you are not familiar with her, definitely start with "Somewhere Towards the End" or "Instead of a Letter" rather than here.
This short book is charming, just like the rest of the author's books. If you are a large fan of Diana Athill, read it and enjoy her view of a delightful vacation. If you are not familiar with her, definitely start with "Somewhere Towards the End" or "Instead of a Letter" rather than here.
July 12, 2023
Man kanske skulle skriva mer resedagbok? Blev också sugen på att resa ensam på tåg genom Europa. Vill träffa någon trevlig italiensk läkare att äta lunch med i restaurangvagnen. Fast vid närmare eftertanke….(?) Man skulle varit rik på 50-talet am I right?
Mys För Dina Semester Dagar
Mys För Dina Semester Dagar
November 30, 2018
A very short, delightful read. Very much like a lovely, short trip.
June 30, 2024
A light, happy book recommended by Annabel’s nan before we went to Florence. Only 64 pages and a lot of that was the introduction, but a true diary of Athill’s first experience abroad, in Florence. Really feels like you’re in Florence and it just reminds you of the beautiful city - as always anyone wants to go then lmk I’m always down
Read
June 10, 2024Very sweet
Read
June 13, 2021Florence didn’t feel like home. It’s great charm lay in its unlikeliness to home ~ in it being so enchantingly ‘elsewhere.’ p.9
January 9, 2019
Just the other week, Diana Athill turned 100. In honor of her birthday, Granta ran a Twitter giveaway and I was one of five lucky winners to receive a signed copy of this, her latest (last?) book. Like Joan Didion’s South and West and Antonia Fraser’s Our Israeli Diary, it’s pretty much just a scrapbook giving some thoughts on the author’s travels, and thus only a book for diehard fans. At 64 pages, it can easily be read in part of an afternoon.
In August 1947 (the month my mother was born), Athill, then 30, set off from London by train with her cousin to travel to Italy, where they spent two weeks – and just £20 (excepting the train fare). The trip was to celebrate the end of World War II and all its deprivations, and for the most part the ravages of war were not as evident on the Continent as they were in London itself. “I really don’t think I have ever had such a lovely fortnight in my life,” Athill concludes the journal, which she kept at her mother’s request to show her when she got back.
The slim book is illustrated with archive photographs and prefaced by a short 2016 essay reflecting on the context for this trip but also on holidays in general, including her most memorable ones to Dominica and Santa Fe. Travel is about finding an “enchanting ‘elsewhere’,” she writes, and signifies “escape, discovery, renewal and refreshing plunges into what I most wanted to experience.” Florence was her first “elsewhere” and launched a decades-long love of travel.
Having visited Florence in 2014, I could recognize most of the tourist destinations Athill and her cousin targeted, and if her descriptions aren’t particularly fresh and exciting they’re at least as interesting as anything I could have come up with at the time. They’re also evidence of her knack for picking up on details of people and places and retelling anecdotes, skills that would serve her well in her nine books, all of which I’ve read. I don’t suppose there will be any more, which is a shame, but many of them will be worth rereading some day.
In August 1947 (the month my mother was born), Athill, then 30, set off from London by train with her cousin to travel to Italy, where they spent two weeks – and just £20 (excepting the train fare). The trip was to celebrate the end of World War II and all its deprivations, and for the most part the ravages of war were not as evident on the Continent as they were in London itself. “I really don’t think I have ever had such a lovely fortnight in my life,” Athill concludes the journal, which she kept at her mother’s request to show her when she got back.
The slim book is illustrated with archive photographs and prefaced by a short 2016 essay reflecting on the context for this trip but also on holidays in general, including her most memorable ones to Dominica and Santa Fe. Travel is about finding an “enchanting ‘elsewhere’,” she writes, and signifies “escape, discovery, renewal and refreshing plunges into what I most wanted to experience.” Florence was her first “elsewhere” and launched a decades-long love of travel.
Having visited Florence in 2014, I could recognize most of the tourist destinations Athill and her cousin targeted, and if her descriptions aren’t particularly fresh and exciting they’re at least as interesting as anything I could have come up with at the time. They’re also evidence of her knack for picking up on details of people and places and retelling anecdotes, skills that would serve her well in her nine books, all of which I’ve read. I don’t suppose there will be any more, which is a shame, but many of them will be worth rereading some day.
March 22, 2017
A Florence Diary is a meringue. This slim book, Diana Athill's diary of a trip to Florence in 1947, offered a reason to read more of Diana Athill, who memoirs I've enjoyed in the past. Since Athill is in her 90s, a new publication is a reason to rejoice. The pleasure in this book is not in what happens, but how Athill tells the tale, which is a compliment to her engaging voice and her wit. She's an insightful portraitist, and can candidly and humorously skewer a photo-obsessed traveler she meets on her trip and never sound the slightest bit mean or sour. I read A Florence Diary purely for the enjoyment of hearing from an independent woman and writer who describes her singular life frankly and insightfully, without regret, and with a great deal of appreciation.
November 5, 2016
A gorgeous little travel journal documenting a two week holiday to Firenze taken back in 1947. This is perfect for all lovers of Italy and will transport you to the beauty, majesty and dirt of Florence. It certainly inspired me to revisit holiday pictures from my own visits to this most beautiful of cities.
November 12, 2022
I have been lucky enough to travel quite extensively in Italy, but Florence is a city I’ve not yet visited (at least at the time of writing). I adore travel writing, and whilst it was one of the things which got me through one lockdown after another when real-life travel was banned, I had not encountered much of it in my 2022 reading life. That changed, however, when I found a slim copy of Diana Athill’s A Florence Diary in my local library.
These 64 pages are filled with ‘a charming and vivacious’ account of Athill’s trip to Florence during the late 1940s, alongside photographs taken in Florence during this period. At the time of its publication in 2016, the book was a ‘recently discovered gem’. It provides, says its blurb, ‘a vibrant portrait of one of the most beautiful and beloved cities in the world.’
In her retrospective introduction, Athill notes that this is the only diary she ever wrote, when asked to by her mother, who subsequently ‘preserved’ it: ‘My mother didn’t just read it, but even edited it a little: tiny corrections in her handwriting occur here and there.' Of the city, she comments: ‘Florence didn’t feel like home. Its great charm lay in its unlikeliness to home – in its being enchantingly “elsewhere”. And I am forever grateful that it was my very first “elsewhere”.’
During the summer of 1947, Athill and her cousin, Pen, took the Golden Arrow train to Florence for a fortnight. The holiday was paid for by their aunt, as a celebration of the end of the Second World War, and marked the first time Athill had been out of Britain. Of herself and Pen, she comments: ‘We could hardly have been more different from one another but we travelled together as comfortably as a pair of old bedroom slippers.’
There are many comical scenes here, particularly with regard to the girls’ long train journey from central London. When their journey begins, ‘Pen didn’t register any luggage, and although her stuff was small it was very numerous, and largely tied together with insecure pieces of string. It included a smart white straw hat with blue veil, a collection of canvases, and a vicious easel which poked people in the eye at every move and kept on losing legs.’
Alongside the humour are some wonderful reminiscences too. Athill notes, breathily: ‘Everything is so beautiful that even not “doing” anything special is marvellous.’ What I particularly enjoyed here were the glimpses Athill gives into a very specific and particular period in time, when Europe was rebuilding following years of war. Of a trip to the Accademia di Belle Arti, for instance, the cousins see ‘a special exhibition of pictures that were wrecked in the war and which they are restoring… They are working miracles on them. Things that were blistered fragments are made almost whole again.’
I also appreciated the almost self-deprecating way in which Athill spoke of their actions. On Wednesday the 28th of August, for example, she wrote: ‘We left the Hotel Bonciani this morning, in a shower of gold. From our enormous popularity at the end, we deduce that we must, as usual, have over-tipped like mad.’ She comments on everything she sees, flattering or otherwise: ‘Everyone seems to adore their babies, and they spoil them and pet them and dress them up beautifully, but the minute one of the poor little things begins to go to sleep, they sweep on it and poke it and jog it and throw it in the air and bandy it about from hand to hand and coo and chuck and sing, until it is a wonder that any Italian child survives infancy.’
Athill’s writing is splendid, and she knows just the right tone to strike at every point. She beautifully notes the following partway into her stay: ‘Nobody seems to use the loggia much, we can’t think why. When I came up this evening after dinner, I almost gasped at the beauty of it. There is a moon and the sky is velvet blue, and the lights on the hill opposite are reflected in long wavering streaks in the velvet blue Arno…’.
Perhaps shamefully, I had only read a single one of Athill’s books prior to A Florence Diary, Persephone-published Midsummer Night at the Workhouse. A Florence Diary has cemented that I really need to get to more of her oeuvre, and soon. A Florence Diary is a rather charming piece of important social history, which transported me right to Italy. The joy of travelling, and of exploring somewhere new, is expressed so lovingly, and with such gratitude. I only wish it had been three times as long!
These 64 pages are filled with ‘a charming and vivacious’ account of Athill’s trip to Florence during the late 1940s, alongside photographs taken in Florence during this period. At the time of its publication in 2016, the book was a ‘recently discovered gem’. It provides, says its blurb, ‘a vibrant portrait of one of the most beautiful and beloved cities in the world.’
In her retrospective introduction, Athill notes that this is the only diary she ever wrote, when asked to by her mother, who subsequently ‘preserved’ it: ‘My mother didn’t just read it, but even edited it a little: tiny corrections in her handwriting occur here and there.' Of the city, she comments: ‘Florence didn’t feel like home. Its great charm lay in its unlikeliness to home – in its being enchantingly “elsewhere”. And I am forever grateful that it was my very first “elsewhere”.’
During the summer of 1947, Athill and her cousin, Pen, took the Golden Arrow train to Florence for a fortnight. The holiday was paid for by their aunt, as a celebration of the end of the Second World War, and marked the first time Athill had been out of Britain. Of herself and Pen, she comments: ‘We could hardly have been more different from one another but we travelled together as comfortably as a pair of old bedroom slippers.’
There are many comical scenes here, particularly with regard to the girls’ long train journey from central London. When their journey begins, ‘Pen didn’t register any luggage, and although her stuff was small it was very numerous, and largely tied together with insecure pieces of string. It included a smart white straw hat with blue veil, a collection of canvases, and a vicious easel which poked people in the eye at every move and kept on losing legs.’
Alongside the humour are some wonderful reminiscences too. Athill notes, breathily: ‘Everything is so beautiful that even not “doing” anything special is marvellous.’ What I particularly enjoyed here were the glimpses Athill gives into a very specific and particular period in time, when Europe was rebuilding following years of war. Of a trip to the Accademia di Belle Arti, for instance, the cousins see ‘a special exhibition of pictures that were wrecked in the war and which they are restoring… They are working miracles on them. Things that were blistered fragments are made almost whole again.’
I also appreciated the almost self-deprecating way in which Athill spoke of their actions. On Wednesday the 28th of August, for example, she wrote: ‘We left the Hotel Bonciani this morning, in a shower of gold. From our enormous popularity at the end, we deduce that we must, as usual, have over-tipped like mad.’ She comments on everything she sees, flattering or otherwise: ‘Everyone seems to adore their babies, and they spoil them and pet them and dress them up beautifully, but the minute one of the poor little things begins to go to sleep, they sweep on it and poke it and jog it and throw it in the air and bandy it about from hand to hand and coo and chuck and sing, until it is a wonder that any Italian child survives infancy.’
Athill’s writing is splendid, and she knows just the right tone to strike at every point. She beautifully notes the following partway into her stay: ‘Nobody seems to use the loggia much, we can’t think why. When I came up this evening after dinner, I almost gasped at the beauty of it. There is a moon and the sky is velvet blue, and the lights on the hill opposite are reflected in long wavering streaks in the velvet blue Arno…’.
Perhaps shamefully, I had only read a single one of Athill’s books prior to A Florence Diary, Persephone-published Midsummer Night at the Workhouse. A Florence Diary has cemented that I really need to get to more of her oeuvre, and soon. A Florence Diary is a rather charming piece of important social history, which transported me right to Italy. The joy of travelling, and of exploring somewhere new, is expressed so lovingly, and with such gratitude. I only wish it had been three times as long!
July 23, 2018
This slim book is one-quarter introduction written in 2016, and three-quarters diary written in 1947, when the author was 29. While the reader might think of learning about Florentine sites from the book, the author quickly points out that enough has been written already about those sites. The author focuses on the path and experiences, although she does mention what she has seen.
This travel took place a few years after the end of World War II, and to me one of the values of the book is an insight into life (of at least the author and her cousin) at the time: meeting people, sharing her biases of people from different countries, staying on a budget, needing to exchange moneys as you crossed national boundaries, and seemingly having to book trains several times during the trip. Also amazing is the cast of characters the author meets as she travels: an Italian Prince, a photographer, people living in Italy returning to England … perhaps a gift of hers. Furthermore, there is a directness to that author’s writing, which is quite refreshing.
I came across this book at the local public library, looking through travel books to Tuscany and Florence (yes, a trip is in my future). And after checking it out, and reading it, I realized this does not give me insights into what I want to do. However, it is interesting to see how others describe their travel experience. And before writing this review, I looked up who Diana Athill is. Yes, she is now 100, and still quite active. And her personal life is extremely interesting. Knowing a bit more about her helped me better understand her introduction.
That said, she enjoyed the trip immensely, as a way to see something out of her ordinary, and for the sense of getting away for two weeks. We can all benefit from travel, so let’s go!
This travel took place a few years after the end of World War II, and to me one of the values of the book is an insight into life (of at least the author and her cousin) at the time: meeting people, sharing her biases of people from different countries, staying on a budget, needing to exchange moneys as you crossed national boundaries, and seemingly having to book trains several times during the trip. Also amazing is the cast of characters the author meets as she travels: an Italian Prince, a photographer, people living in Italy returning to England … perhaps a gift of hers. Furthermore, there is a directness to that author’s writing, which is quite refreshing.
I came across this book at the local public library, looking through travel books to Tuscany and Florence (yes, a trip is in my future). And after checking it out, and reading it, I realized this does not give me insights into what I want to do. However, it is interesting to see how others describe their travel experience. And before writing this review, I looked up who Diana Athill is. Yes, she is now 100, and still quite active. And her personal life is extremely interesting. Knowing a bit more about her helped me better understand her introduction.
That said, she enjoyed the trip immensely, as a way to see something out of her ordinary, and for the sense of getting away for two weeks. We can all benefit from travel, so let’s go!
August 13, 2021
Ho un rapporto speciale e delicato con Diana Athill. I suoi libri mi fanno compagnia da quando ero una giovane donna e sono oltremodo dispiaciuta di aver saputo in ritardo della sua morte (naturalmente qui non ne ha parlato nessuno).
Quando te ne sei andata, mia cara Diana, nel gennaio 2019 io ero alle prese con i miei primi giorni da mamma ed ero totalmente immersa nella mia nuova vita, per questo la notizia della tua morte deve essermi sfuggita, ma mi ha colpita profondamente quando l’ho saputo. Non che tu non fossi pronta, lo so bene. Immagino tu l’abbia affrontata in maniera stoica e serena, ma non ero pronta io perché avevo ancora bisogno di qualche tuo libro. Avevo ancora bisogno di qualche tua storia. È per questo che ho impiegato un po’ di tempo per leggere il tuo ultimo libro. L’avevo comprato qualche tempo fa, ma l’ho tenuto nella libreria per un po’, non ancora pronta a dire addio alla tua penna. Ed ecco che, chissà perché, nella settimana più calda di un’afosissima estate, al mio nono mese di gravidanza, penso che sia arrivato il momento di leggere le tue parole.
Come al solito il tuo modo di scrivere così naturale di tutto e tutti mi lascia senza fiato. Leggerti è come conoscerti, conoscere una parte del tuo cuore e questa è una cosa che vorrei imparare da te.
Hai ispirato la mia scelta di dare vita a una casa editrice e spero di diventare brava anche solo la metà di te. Ho il tuo libro Stelt (chissà perché non ancora tradotto in italiano) sulla mia scrivania dove lavoro, come una bibbia.
Sei la donna con la quale mi sarei volentieri messa in poltrona a parlare per ore e ore, ed è un po’ quello che immagino di fare quando sono davanti ai tuoi libri.
Rileggerò i tuoi libri più volte nel corso della mia vita, ne sono sicura.
Addio Diana, divertiti e sii libera come sei sempre stata.
Quando te ne sei andata, mia cara Diana, nel gennaio 2019 io ero alle prese con i miei primi giorni da mamma ed ero totalmente immersa nella mia nuova vita, per questo la notizia della tua morte deve essermi sfuggita, ma mi ha colpita profondamente quando l’ho saputo. Non che tu non fossi pronta, lo so bene. Immagino tu l’abbia affrontata in maniera stoica e serena, ma non ero pronta io perché avevo ancora bisogno di qualche tuo libro. Avevo ancora bisogno di qualche tua storia. È per questo che ho impiegato un po’ di tempo per leggere il tuo ultimo libro. L’avevo comprato qualche tempo fa, ma l’ho tenuto nella libreria per un po’, non ancora pronta a dire addio alla tua penna. Ed ecco che, chissà perché, nella settimana più calda di un’afosissima estate, al mio nono mese di gravidanza, penso che sia arrivato il momento di leggere le tue parole.
Come al solito il tuo modo di scrivere così naturale di tutto e tutti mi lascia senza fiato. Leggerti è come conoscerti, conoscere una parte del tuo cuore e questa è una cosa che vorrei imparare da te.
Hai ispirato la mia scelta di dare vita a una casa editrice e spero di diventare brava anche solo la metà di te. Ho il tuo libro Stelt (chissà perché non ancora tradotto in italiano) sulla mia scrivania dove lavoro, come una bibbia.
Sei la donna con la quale mi sarei volentieri messa in poltrona a parlare per ore e ore, ed è un po’ quello che immagino di fare quando sono davanti ai tuoi libri.
Rileggerò i tuoi libri più volte nel corso della mia vita, ne sono sicura.
Addio Diana, divertiti e sii libera come sei sempre stata.
January 9, 2022
Picked this up from the library on a whim, and I'm glad that I did, even though I had never heard of Diana Athill before. Her writing is gorgeous, and she sounds like such a fun person to travel with. Some of my favorite bits:
"'Abroad' was more enticing than the UK because it was more of an escape after the cruel bottling up of six years of war. Nowhere here could you wake up on a train that had stopped in the middle of the night, push a blind aside, and see a lantern carried along an unknown platform by a man talking to another in an unknown language -- those voices, the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness giving you such a tingle of excitement. And next morning, if you were Italy bound -- mountains sailing by, and look! A white streak -- a waterfall!"
"It was to another cousin that I owe my other lovely Italian holidays: my cousin Toby, who bought a house near Lucca in which I stayed for six consecutive summer holidays. It was a large but simple farmhouse converted by a citizen of Lucca sometime in the eighteen-hundreds into his country villa. With his own hand he had painted the walls of his salone with scenes from the novels of Walter Scott, adding a frieze of carefully imagined "family portraits" into the bargain. It was the oddest mixture of attempted grandeur and naughtiness. Toby bought the house from two old ladies who became so flustered when asked to remove its contents that they ended up begging him to keep the lot, so when I opened a drawer in my favourite bedroom out fell a bundle of Latin exercises written by a little boy in 1883, and a very long ode to the opening of the first tramway in Lucca."
"Naturally the charm of a place often depends on its inhabitants as well as its beauty and intrinsic interest. Domenica, in the Eastern Caribbean, for example, an exceptionally lovely island where rainforested mountains plunge so abruptly into the sea that no road can be built to encircle it, is coloured by being Jean Rhys's island even after its death."
"'Abroad' was more enticing than the UK because it was more of an escape after the cruel bottling up of six years of war. Nowhere here could you wake up on a train that had stopped in the middle of the night, push a blind aside, and see a lantern carried along an unknown platform by a man talking to another in an unknown language -- those voices, the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness giving you such a tingle of excitement. And next morning, if you were Italy bound -- mountains sailing by, and look! A white streak -- a waterfall!"
"It was to another cousin that I owe my other lovely Italian holidays: my cousin Toby, who bought a house near Lucca in which I stayed for six consecutive summer holidays. It was a large but simple farmhouse converted by a citizen of Lucca sometime in the eighteen-hundreds into his country villa. With his own hand he had painted the walls of his salone with scenes from the novels of Walter Scott, adding a frieze of carefully imagined "family portraits" into the bargain. It was the oddest mixture of attempted grandeur and naughtiness. Toby bought the house from two old ladies who became so flustered when asked to remove its contents that they ended up begging him to keep the lot, so when I opened a drawer in my favourite bedroom out fell a bundle of Latin exercises written by a little boy in 1883, and a very long ode to the opening of the first tramway in Lucca."
"Naturally the charm of a place often depends on its inhabitants as well as its beauty and intrinsic interest. Domenica, in the Eastern Caribbean, for example, an exceptionally lovely island where rainforested mountains plunge so abruptly into the sea that no road can be built to encircle it, is coloured by being Jean Rhys's island even after its death."
March 22, 2019
This is a tiny book, a diary written by Diana Athill at the request of her mother describing Athill’s first trip abroad. It was gift from an aunt that enabled her to catch the train to Florence and get her first experience of “the great elsewhere.” In 1947 Italy was rebuilding after WWII and yet Athill did not find the challenge daunting. Speaking no Italian she set off on the train across Europe with her cousin Pen somehow managing to make friends who helped her navigate every obstacle involved in border crossings, accommodations in a drought stricken city, and access to wonderful art in sometimes out of the way places.
The first section of the book is an essay about the joys of world travel written in 2016 as she prepared to publish this rediscovered diary. That essay is an inspirational look back over 50 years of travel worldwide. What makes the diary so special is it’s account of Athill’s joyous discovery that what can make travel so rich is “the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness.”
The first section of the book is an essay about the joys of world travel written in 2016 as she prepared to publish this rediscovered diary. That essay is an inspirational look back over 50 years of travel worldwide. What makes the diary so special is it’s account of Athill’s joyous discovery that what can make travel so rich is “the tiny glimpse of foreign ordinariness.”
August 4, 2020
I rather suspect this very slight volume was published on the strength of Athill's previous successes, most of which I have enjoyed immensely. This is a rather breathless account of her first trip abroad with her friend Pen in 1949 and, as is so often the case, the journey is more interesting than the destination. Florence is described largely through a succession of visits to churches, galleries, and palaces none of which translate very happily to the printed word. Her descriptions of some of their fellow travellers and hotel guests are much more interesting and it is, as always, well written.
If you are new to Diana Athill, start with any of her other works which show off her talent to much greater effect.
If you are new to Diana Athill, start with any of her other works which show off her talent to much greater effect.
June 1, 2019
This is a quick and easy (one sitting) read of a diary, written in 1947, of a young woman's two-week trip from Britain to Florence with her cousin. She hardly mentions any of the big sights people go to see in Florence. Instead, she concentrates on the people they meet along the way and the more out-of-the-way things they do (going to the cinema, when they don't speak Italian). Interesting and enjoyable, and a few lesser-known sights are mentioned, which interested me as a trip-planner. This should be enough to keep your attention through this short book, if the 1947 British language doesn't turn you off: "indeed, quite, I say!"
December 23, 2020
A slight but charming little book. I love the quaint little touches: taking 60 hours to get to Florence by train; being dirtied by soot blown in from the window; an upset stomach being referred to as “the colly wobbles”
Athill already demonstrates at this young age all the qualities that make her such a find memoirist. Lovely offhand throwaway comments and observations my favourite being this comment about a most useful Englishmen they picked up on a bus: he was nice, and upstanding, and presentable (although he was at Keble). That certainly brought back memories of my Oxford days and College stereotypes!
Athill already demonstrates at this young age all the qualities that make her such a find memoirist. Lovely offhand throwaway comments and observations my favourite being this comment about a most useful Englishmen they picked up on a bus: he was nice, and upstanding, and presentable (although he was at Keble). That certainly brought back memories of my Oxford days and College stereotypes!
September 29, 2017
A short, enjoyable read about a trip to Florence post WW2. Two British women travel by train to the city and explore the wonders of it. A nice glimpse of Florence and Tuscany for those who recall their own awe at the Italian art, history, and culture. A lovely look at the positive can-do attitudes in post war Europe. And, a remembrance of travel with civility - people chat on trains, strangers meet for dinner just to have nice company, and locals welcome tourists not for their dollars but to share pride in their country.
October 6, 2018
Charming. As young travelers, Diana and her cousin Pen are frugal but far from impoverished, randomly exploring post-war Florence and admiring its art and architecture, and sampling sweets and cakes with great delight. In this wide-eyed state, they attract the attention of a number of men willing to join them for afternoon adventures and to buy dinner which Diana finds a sign of thriftiness on their part but for their naivety and guilelessness would come off as manipulative and even dangerous in our modern mindset.
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