“My arrival at Turin was the first and only moment of intoxication I have found in Italy. It is a city of palaces. After a change of dress . . . . . I walked out, and traversing several clean, spacious streets, came to a promenade outside the town, from which I saw the chain of Alps we had left behind us, rising like a range of marble pillars in the evening sky. . . . . I could distinguish the broad and rapid Po winding along at the other extremity of the walk, through vineyards and meadow grounds. The trees had on that deep sad foliage which takes a mellower tinge from being prolonged into the midst of winter, and which I had only seen in pictures. A monk was walking in a solitary grove at a little distance from the common path. The air was soft and balmy, and I felt transported to another climate—another earth—another sky. The winter was suddenly changed to spring. It was as if I had to begin my life anew. . . . .

“We were at the back of the pit, in which there was only standing room, and leaned against the first row of boxes, full of the Piedmontese nobility, who talked fast and loud in their harsh guttural dialect in spite of the repeated admonitions of ‘a gentle usher, Authority by name,’ who every five seconds hissed some lady of quality and high breeding whose voice was heard with an éclat above all the rest. . . . .

“The only annoyance I found at Turin was the number of beggars, who are stuck against the walls like fixtures. . . . .

“We were fortunate enough to find a voiture going from Geneva to Florence with an English lady and her niece. I bargained for the two remaining places for ten guineas, and the journey turned out pleasantly, I believe, to all parties; I am sure it did so to us. We were to be eight days on the road, and to stop two days to rest, once at Parma and once at Bologna, to see the pictures.

“The next morning was clear and frosty, and the sun shone bright into the windows of the voiture as we left Turin, and proceeded for some miles at a gentle pace along the banks of the Po. . . . . We breakfasted at the first town we came to, in two separate English groups, and I could not help being struck with the manner of our reception at an Italian inn, which had an air of indifference, insolence, and hollow swaggering about it, as much as to say, ‘Well, what do you think of us Italians? Whatever you think we care very little about the matter!’. . . . . The room smoked, and the waiter insisted on having the windows and the door open, in spite of my remonstrances to the contrary. He flung in and out of the room as if he had a great opinion of himself, and wished to express it by a braggadocio air.

“In Switzerland and Savoy you are waited on by women, in Italy by men. I cannot say I like the exchange. From Turin to Florence only one girl entered the room, and she (not to mend the matter) was a very pretty one. I was told at the office of Messrs. Bonnafoux, at Turin, that travelling to Rome by a vetturino was highly dangerous, and that their diligence was guarded by four carabineers, to defend it from the banditti. I saw none, nor the appearance of anything that looked like a robber, except a bare-foot friar, who suddenly sprang out of a hedge by the roadside, with a somewhat wild and haggard appearance, which a little startled me. . . . .

“We had left the Alps behind us, the white tops of which we still saw scarcely distinguishable from ridges of rolling clouds, and that seemed to follow us like a formidable enemy, and almost enclose us in a semicircle; and we had the Apennines in front, that, gradually emerging from the horizon, opposed their undulating barrier to our future progress, with shadowy shapes of danger, and Covigliaio lurking in the midst of them.

“We had an exhilarating view from our window of the street and great square. It was full of noise and bustle. . . . . The women that I saw did not answer to my expectations. They had high shoulders, thick waists, and shambling feet of that crapaudeux shape which is odious to see or think of. . . . .

“I was not a little tired of the painted shrines and paltry images of the Virgin at every hundred yards as we rode along. But if my thoughts were veering to this cheerless, attenuated speculation of nothingness and vanity, they were called back by the sight of the Farnese Theatre—the noblest and most striking monument I have seen of the golden age of Italy. . . . .

“We left Bologna on our way to Florence in the afternoon, that we might cross the Apennines the following day. . . . . At the first village we came to among the hills we saw, talking to her companions by the road-side, the only very handsome Italian we have yet seen. It was not the true Italian face neither, dark and oval, but more like the face of an English peasant, with heightened grace and animation. . . . . Our voiture was ascending a hill; and as she walked by the side of it with elastic step, and a bloom like the suffusion of a rosy cloud, the sight of her was doubly welcome in this land of dingy complexions, squat features, scowling eyebrows, and round shoulders.

“We slept at ——, nine miles from Bologna, and set off early the next morning, that we might have the whole day before us. . . . . One of our pleasantest employments [along the winding road] was to remark the teams of oxen and carts that we had lately passed winding down a declivity in our rear, or suspended on the edge of a precipice that on the spot we had mistaken for level ground. We had some difficulty, too, with our driver, who had talked gallantly over-night of hiring a couple of oxen to draw us up the mountain; but when it came to the push, his heart failed him, and his Swiss economy prevailed. . . . . The country now grew wilder, and the day gloomy. It was three o’clock before we stopped at Pietra Mala, to have our luggage examined on entering the Tuscan States; and here we resolved to breakfast, instead of proceeding four miles farther to Covigliaio.

“Our reception at Pietra Mala was frightful enough; the rooms were cold and empty; and we were met with a vacant stare or with sullen frowns, in lieu of any better welcome. I have since thought that these were probably the consequence of the contempt and ill-humour shown by other English travellers at the desolateness of the place and the apparent want of accommodation; for, as the fire of brushwood was lighted, and the eggs, bread, and coffee were brought in by degrees, and we expressed our satisfaction in them, the cloud on the brow of our reluctant entertainers vanished, and melted into thankful smiles.

“We had now to mount the longest and steepest ascent of the Apennines; and Jaques, who began to be alarmed at the accounts of the state of the road and at the increasing gloom of the weather, by a great effort of magnanimity had a yoke of oxen put to, and afterwards another horse, to drag us up the worst part; but as soon as he could find an excuse he dismissed both, and we crawled and stumbled on as before. . . . . We felt uncomfortable, for the increased violence of the wind or thickening of the fog would have presented serious obstacles to our farther progress, which became every moment more necessary as the evening closed in—as it was, we only saw a few yards of the road distinctly before us, which cleared as we advanced forward. . . . .

“At length, when we had arrived near the very top of the mountain, we had to cross a few yards of very slippery ice, which became a matter of considerable doubt and difficulty—the horses could hardly keep their feet in straining to move forward; and if one of them had fallen and been hurt, the accident might have detained us on the middle of the mountain, without any aid near, or made it so late that the descent on the other side would have been dangerous. Luckily, a desperate effort succeeded, and we gained the summit of the hill without accident.

“We had still some miles to go, and we descended rapidly down on the other side. . . . . About half-way down we emerged, to our great delight, from the mist . . . . that had hitherto enveloped us; and the valley opened at our feet in dim but welcome perspective. We proceeded more leisurely on to La Meschere. . . . .

“The inn at La Meschere is, like many of the inns in Italy, a set of wide dilapidated halls, without furniture, but with quantities of old and bad pictures, portraits, or histories. The people (the attendants here were women) were obliging and good-humoured, though we could procure neither eggs nor milk with our coffee, but were compelled to have it black.

“We were put into a sitting-room with three beds in it without curtains, as they had no other with a fireplace disengaged, and which, with the coverlids like horse-cloths, and the strong smell of the Indian corn with which they were stuffed, brought to one’s mind the idea of a three-stalled stable. We were refreshed, however, for we slept securely; and we entered upon the last stage the following day, less exhausted than we had been by the first.

“It was Carnival time when we came, and the town presented something of the same scene that London does at Bartholomew Fair. . . . . May-day in London is a favourable version of the Carnival here. . . . . I have only heard of two masks that seemed to have any point or humour in them; and one of these was not a mask, but a person who went about with his face uncovered, but keeping it, in spite of everything he saw or heard, in the same unmoved position as if it were a mask. The other was a person so oddly disguised that you did not know what to make of him, whether he were man or woman, beast or bird, and who, pretending to be equally at a loss himself, went about asking every one if they could tell him what he was? . . . .

“We could not tell exactly what to make of the striking of the clocks at first; at eight they struck two, at twelve six. . . . . A day or two cleared up the mystery, and we found that the clocks here . . . . counted the hours by sixes, instead of going on to twelve. . . . .

“Customs come round. I was surprised to find, at the Hotel of the Four Nations, where we stopped the two first days, that we could have a pudding for dinner (a thing that is not to be had in all France). . . . . We might have remained at the Four Nations for eighteen francs a day, living in a very sumptuous manner; but we have removed to apartments fitted up in the highest fashion, for ten piastres (two guineas) a month, and where the whole of our expenses for boiled and roast, with English cups and saucers and steamed potatoes, does not come to thirty shillings a week. We have every English comfort, with a clearer air and a finer country. It was exceedingly cold when we first came. . . . . It is now milder (Feb. 23 [1825]), and like April weather in England. There is a balmy lightness and vernal freshness in the air. Might I once more see the coming on of spring as erst, in the springtime of my life, it would be here! . . . .