Anna Van Eps Burdick, 1905

Candid manuscript account of a voyage on the Cunard liner R.M.S. Carpathia from New York to Italy and travels in the latter during the spring and summer of 1905 by Anna Van Eps Burdick of New York, in company with her mother, sisters Mary and Katrina, and several other female friends. Burdick's many comments on what she saw are especially important for the light they shed on her own and her group's mindset. Stopping to see Gibralter on their way to... Italy, to which they devoted most of their time and the lion's share of this manuscript, they also toured a few Swiss cities after going north through the Dolomites at the end of their vacation. In Italy itself, they began at Palermo, then traveled to Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri, Posilipo, noting buildings seen, atmosphere sensed, and sights incongruous to them as they toured each. In Rome, Ann Burdick did not much admire St. Peter's, but enjoyed the Barbarini Palace. During a papal audience arranged by an American friend, Burdick kissed the Pope's ring; then, after visiting the English church and cemetary, several other churches and palazzi and their gardens, off they went to Florence to feast upon its many galleries. They next toured Venice and then closed this account with walking the Dolomites, taking long coach ftives through named valleys, and moving on to stays in Zurich and Lucerne, where this party joined the Burdick's father, brother Charles, and some friends.