And mine’s started ‘Woke up this morning’ (the Bluesman in me), not nearly as observant as Anne Frank’s birthday gift and other diaries.
Eighty years have passed since Otto Frank gave Anne a diary for her 13th birthday in Amsterdam… and the rest is history.
And for the rest of history we have to rely on diarists, and today’s chroniclers, your humble bloggers.
We have, all my favourite Bandanini and Bandanettes, shared in wonderful odysseys, and with Bandanaman at the tiller, that’s obviously meant detours.
A Homer run
Homer’s Iliad: And isn’t the journey home always better when you’re diverted to exotic destinations?
We think Odysseus though was just using my excuse for His Scary One that it was a working assignment.
To linger longer in the islands of Attica Region such as Kythera…. or Corfu where we honeymooned and Odysseus dallianced.
Byron Alpshausen
Lord Byron’s Alpine Journal: And when Byron was exiled from England for getting ‘too close to his family’ where did he go?
To heaven’s ceiling in Interlaken, Switzerland, of course.
And where you can dine at the very hotel, the Hotel Interlaken, the Bad Boy of the Romantics quaffed wine. And this Swiss swisher too.
Where Twain shall meet
Mark Twain, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: And as prolific a traveller as Connecticut’s Samuel Clemens was this was his most epic journey.
Across 14 centuries and an ocean.
Twain is for many the Father of Modern Travel Writing.
And his home was tantalisingly up the road on my latest trip to New England.
What the Dickens?
Charles Dickens’ American Notes, Pictures from Italy: The Great Victorian Age author of course stripped bare the England of his days.
But his curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the foibles of human nature stretched way beyond that… to America and Italy.
Which just so happen to be two of my favourite countries anywhere in the world.
Dickens was particularly impressed with Boston (good judge) of which he said: ‘Boston is what I would like the whole of the United States to be.’
But he seemed to have a conflicted view of Rome, observing on first viewing that it reminded him of London (no harm there).
But then being captivated by the Colosseum and just as quickly let down by the smallness of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. What the Dickens!
Fits the Bill
Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: And, of course, we could pick from any of his vast collection of travel diaries/books.
But we’ll plump for his trek along the Appalachian Trail, probably because we’re jealous.
I know I could persuade the Boss to allow me the five and a half months to walk the 2,100 miles from Maine down to Georgia.
And that’s 14 states, and five states I’ve still to tick off.
Counties to Synge about
JM Synge, Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara: And full disclosure here, mine have been more in Wicklow.
Although I was captivated by Kerry and Connemara will always be the land of my childhood holidays.
Described as capturing ‘the embers of a dying culture’ and accompanied with drawings by Jack B. Yeats it’s a reminder…
That you can always come home to Ireland.
For today though we share Anne Frank’s birthday gift and other diaries and ask whose are your favourite diaries?