The descent towards Edolo lies through the green and fertile Val Corteno. As the capital of the upper Val Camonica is approached lofty snow-capped crags tower opposite. These are not part of the main mass of the Adamello, but belong to the outlying group of Monte Aviolo.
Edolo lies on either side of a strong green torrent, fed by the eternal snows, which seems a river compared to the slender streams of the Bergamasque valleys. Across the bridge on a high platform stand a large white church and campanile, backed by rich foliage and a hillside, steep yet fertile, which rises straight into the clouds. The little mountain-town is mediæval and Italian in character. The streets are narrow and shady; old coats-of-arms are carved on the walls, queer-headed monsters glower between the windows, arched loggias run round the interior courtyards. The place tells you it has a history, and one wonders for a moment what that history was. We know that German emperors came this way through the mountains, that Barbarossa confirmed the liberties of Val Camonica, and that Maximilian once halted within these walls. Further details must be sought in the works of local historians and in the libraries of Bergamo or Brescia.
Edolo has long been notorious for bad inns. Lately, however, the 'Leone d'Oro,' the house in the centre of the town, has come into the hands of a most well-meaning proprietor, who provides very fair food and lodging at reasonable prices. Unfortunately nothing seems to get rid of the extraordinarily pungent flavour of stables which has for years pervaded the premises. I can only compare it to that of an underground stall in Armenia, in which it was once my ill-fortune to spend the night. Such a smell convinces one that at least there can be no difficulty as to means of conveyance. Strangers are doubly annoyed when they discover that they are in one of the few towns in the Alps where it is often impossible at short notice to get horses or a carriage. If animals even cannot endure the atmosphere, it is surely high time to advertise 'Wanted a Hercules.'
On my last visit the demand for a carriage and pair was triumphantly met by the production of a diligence that had retired on account of old age and failing powers from public service, but was still ready to do a job for friends. Although built to contain some fifteen persons, it was so ingeniously arranged that, except from the box-seats, nothing could possibly be seen except the horses' tails and a few yards of highroad. We were compelled to cluster round the driver like a bunch of schoolboys, leaving the body of our machine to lumber along empty in the rear.
To drive down Val Camonica on a fresh summer's morning before the sunlight has lost its first grace and glitter, when, without a breath of wind, every particle in earth and air, and even our own dull frames, seem to vibrate with the joy of existence, is to have one of the most delicious sensations imaginable. The scenery rivals and equals that of the Val d'Aosta near Villeneuve. The valley curves gracefully, the hillsides are cut by ravines or open out into great bays rich with woods. Every bush stands clearly defined in the translucent air, every leaf reflects back from a lustrous surface, unclogged by damp and smuts, the welcome sunbeams with which the whole atmosphere is in a dance. Lower down the slopes sweep out in folds of chestnut forest. High overhead a company of granitic peaks stand up stiff and straight in their icy armour against an Italian sky.
Below the opening of Val di Malga there is a long straight reach of road; then Val Paisco, with a path leading to Val di Scalve, is passed on the right and a bridge crossed. Amidst broken ground and closing hillsides we approached Cedegolo, a considerable village, built between two torrents and under sheltering rocks, in a sunny romantic situation. As we drove up the street a quack doctor, taking advantage of the assembly drawn down to Sunday high mass, was haranguing a crowd of bright-kerchiefed girls and bronzed peasants from the hill villages. Women from the lower valley were offering for sale grapes, figs and peaches of the second crop, the latter red as roses and hard as bullets.
The inn here has been visited and commended by several travellers as clean and comfortable. Such praise it fully merits, but on other grounds we had much reason to complain of the Cedegolans.
The habit of asking a very great deal more than you expect to get, common in foreign, and particularly in Italian shops, is perhaps as often an amusement as a vexation. The practice is most likely a survival from the old system of barter, which must have necessarily been incompatible with fixed prices. It will always be routed when time becomes of more value to the purchaser than a possible diminution in price. Heavy denunciations of its immorality sound to me rather odd when they come from the mouths of those who themselves adopt in large affairs the very same practice they condemn in small. Why it should be dishonest to ask more than you will take for a ring or a piece of lace, but perfectly right and fair to do the same for a house or estate is a difficult question. The answer must be sought from our worthy countryman who discourses on the rascality of the Jew with whom he haggled six months for a cameo, and if he wants to get rid of a farm is ready to fight for the hundreds sterling as hardly as ever shopkeeper for the francs.
But the inconvenience of a system of bargain becomes, it must be allowed, intolerable, when it is adopted by innkeepers. Their charges differ from others in not being usually a subject of previous arrangement. From the beginning the relation is a friendly one; there is, or ought to be, a tacit understanding between host and guest that no undue advantage will be taken. An extortionate bill is felt by the traveller as a breach of good faith, and he resents it accordingly. Of course it is always open to him to settle the price of everything before he takes it. But fortunately this precaution is seldom necessary, and it is much too tiresome to be adopted generally on the chance.
However, I must, I fear, recommend this last resource to those who visit Cedegolo, or the more western Bergamasque valleys. If they do not adopt it they will often have to choose between paying five francs for a bed or having their parting delayed and embittered by a discussion, which, whatever its result weak concession or successful protest, leaves behind it nothing but unpleasant recollections.