The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, volume 2 (of 2) / By His Wife, Isabel Burton

On the 18th of November I went down to Folkestone to cross, en route to Trieste, and ran through straight to Brussels, where I slept, and next day got to Cologne.
Of course, I stopped and looked at the Cathedral, and went to Johann M. Farina's (4, Jülichs Platz), and the Museum, top of Cathedral, for view, stained glass, and all that; and then I sauntered on to Bonn, Coblenz, Bingen, Castel, Mayence, until I got to Frankfort. I enjoyed the Rhine very much, but my perception for scenery had been a little blunted by the magnificence of South America, and for antiquities by ancient Syria. I thought the finest things in Frankfort were Dannecker's Ariadne, belonging to Mr. Bethmann, a private collection of pictures; and Huss before the Council of Constance, by Lessing; and another of four priests at the throne of the Virgin, by Moretto; and I thought how pretty the place must be in summer.
From here I went quietly on to Würzburg, and thence to Munich, where I was enchanted with the Hôtel des Quatres Saisons. I enjoyed the winding river, and the Forest of Spessart (the remnant of the great primeval Hercynian Forest described by Cæsar and Tacitus), the Spessart range of hills wooded to the top, the wild country with a few villages. I thought the rail along the river-side ascending amongst the wooded hills, crossing the stream of the Laufach, very beautiful, and the entrance to Würzburg reminded me of Damascus and its minarets. Here I called on the famous Dr. Döllinger. I went to see Steigenwald's Bavarian glass, and the porcelain with the Old Masters painted on it, ascended to the top of the Cathedral tower to see the view, and went to every museum and picture-gallery in the place, and thought, as most people do, I imagine, that the City was very pretty, but the Art was very new.
I then went on quietly to Innsbrück. The scenery is magnificent along the banks of the river Inn, through the Tyrolese mountains, capped with snow, wooded, dotted with villages, and with cattle on the mounds, and churches and chapels with delicate spires. I liked the exhilarating air, and especially the valley of Zillerthal, and seeing the fine Tyrolean peasants. The best thing to see at Innsbrück is the Hof-Kirche, or Court Church. There are statues in bronze of all the great Emperors of Austria, and one or two Empresses; they stand in two lines down the church, all in armour and coats of mail. The moment I went into the centre, between these imperial lines, I singled out one of them, exclaiming, There is a gentleman and a knight, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot; and I ran up to see who he was. He was labelled, King Arthur of England. All that day we were crossing the Brenner Pass. The scenery is splendid, with snowy peaks, wooded mountains, waterfalls, and rivers (the Eisach and Adige), torrents and boulders, porphyry rocks, villages, fortresses, convents and castles, churches and chapels with slender red or green steeples. I arrived at Trent, where I found nothing to stay for; so went on to Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Venice, and landed at the Hôtel Europa—which I had inhabited long ago, in 1858, when I was a girl,—in time for table d'hôte . It was fourteen years since I had seen Venice, and it was like a dream to come back again. It was all to a hair as I left it, even, I believe, to the artificial flowers on the table d'hôte table. It was just the same, only less gay and brilliant—it had lost the Austrians and Henri V.'s Court; and I was older, and all the friends I knew were dispersed.