Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff

Travel

Also known as: Travel

Culture
Show in diary 343 mentions

Thematic Tag: Travel

This thematic tag collects diary paragraphs where Marie describes travel — departures, arrivals, journeys by train, carriage, or ship, hotel stays, and the experience of moving between the many places she inhabited.

Marie's Geography

Marie's life was extraordinarily mobile. She moved regularly between:

  • Nice — winter home, social season (1873-1877, returns later)
  • Paris — primary residence from 1877; art studies at Académie Julian
  • Rome — extended stays for carnival and social season
  • Russia (Poltava, Gavroncy) — family estates, summer visits
  • Spa towns — Schwalbach, Soden, Mont-Dore, Dieppe, Spa, Baden-Baden
  • Italy — Rome, Naples, various cities
  • Spain — Seville, brief visit
  • Germany — multiple spa and social visits

Travel as Narrative

Journeys mark major transitions in the diary. Marie describes the practical details of 19th-century travel — reserving train coupés, packing, the quality of hotel accommodations, the length of carriage rides ("cinq heures de voiture") — and uses departures and arrivals as emotional punctuation. Leaving a city often triggers reflection; arriving in a new one sparks anticipation or dread.

Transportation
  • Train: The primary long-distance transport; Marie notes train types (omnibus vs. express), compartment types (coupé), and travel companions
  • Carriage: For city and regional travel; calèche, landau, fiacre, etc.
  • Ship: For Mediterranean crossings
  • On foot: Walking as both exercise and social activity

Tagging Criteria
  • Tag a journey under way or beginning: departure, train, ship, crossing, arrival.
  • Tag the practicalities of travel: coupés, luggage, hotels on arrival.
  • Tag transitions between cities and countries.
  • Tag a stay abroad when the paragraph is about moving or arriving.
  • Do not tag a drive or a walk in town.
  • Do not tag a place named only as the setting of a scene.
  • Do not tag a landscape seen from the window (Nature & Landscape) unless the journey itself is narrated.
  • Do not tag a thermal cure as medicine (Health & Illness).
  • The bar is that the paragraph is substantively about the theme; a passing word never qualifies. A paragraph takes at most three themes.

Common French Cues
  • Nouns: le voyage, le train, le wagon, le coupé, la gare, le bateau, l'hôtel, les bagages, l'arrivée, le départ
  • Verbs: partir, arriver, voyager, traverser, s'embarquer
  • False friends: départ (also as a start); course (a ride or a race); station (a resort)

Most of this glossary was researched with the help of AI language models and checked against the sources cited; mistakes are possible. If you spot one, please report it with the button at the top of the page.