A Room with a View: Florence to Surrey

The Pensione Bertolini is where it starts: in 1907 Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin and chaperone Charlotte Bartlett arrive for a holiday in Florence and are disappointed that their rooms have no view of the Arno, as promised. At dinner Mr. Emerson and his son George offer to swap rooms. On screen the Bertolini was the Pensione Quisisana, which the route leaves unpinned.

Location precision: The film used the Pensione Quisisana for the fictional Bertolini, but no reliable map point was found for it, so the stop is unpinned.

While sightseeing, Lucy watches a local man being brutally stabbed and killed in the Piazza della Signoria, and she faints. George appears and comes to her aid, and the two share a brief, unchaperoned talk before heading back to the pensione. For the shoot, Merchant Ivory had the whole square cleared.

Visitor guidance: A public square in central Florence, open at all hours.

The English party takes a day trip to the Fiesole countryside. Charlotte and Miss Lavish send Lucy off for a walk, and the Italian driver leads her to a hillside where George is admiring the view. Seeing Lucy across a poppy field, he embraces and kisses her. Charlotte intervenes and cuts the trip short. Forster's novel uses Fiesole too, so this is the story's romantic turning point.

Location precision: The pin marks the town of Fiesole; the exact hillside of the poppy field is not identified.

Back in Surrey, Lucy says nothing about Italy and is soon engaged to Cecil Vyse, a wealthy, socially prominent man. Her engagement party was filmed in the grounds of Emmetts Garden, near Sevenoaks in Kent, which stood in for the English countryside. Cecil and his mother consider the Honeychurch family their social inferiors, an attitude that offends Mrs. Honeychurch and shadows the celebration.

Cecil's world is London, and the film found it at 18 Stafford Terrace in Kensington, the home of the Punch illustrator Edward Linley Sambourne, whose interiors served as Mrs. Vyse's London home. It is the backdrop for the snobbery of the engagement: Cecil loves Lucy, but he and his mother consider the Honeychurch family their social inferiors. Today the Grade II* listed house is open to the public as a museum.

Visitor guidance: Open to the public as a museum; check the opening times before you go.

Windy Corner, the Honeychurch home, is where the past catches up with Lucy. Freddy invites George to play tennis, and Cecil mockingly reads aloud from Miss Lavish's latest novel. Lucy and George recognise a scene identical to their kiss in the poppy field at Fiesole. Soon after, Lucy ends her engagement to Cecil, saying they are incompatible. On screen the house was Foxwold House near Chiddingstone, where an artificial pond was built for the "Sacred Lake"; the Great Storm of 1987 later destroyed the gardens.

Location precision: The pin is omitted: Foxwold could not be matched to a reliable map point, and the house is a filming location only.