NOTES OF A TOUR IN CENTRAL ITALY TO WHICH ARE APPENDED A FEW NOTES FROM A LATER TOUR
II
NOTES OF A TOUR IN CENTRAL ITALY
(From a notebook of 1857)
August 20, 1857.
Left town at 8.30 P.M. by South-Eastern Railway for Folkstone. A close push for it, as I was an unwilling auditor of Lord Riverdale in the House of Lords till 7 P.M. I then had a conference with the Bishop of Oxford.
I left them to settle if possible the Divorce question and rushed home just in time to pack and be off. A very quiet passage over to Boulogne was seconded by a weary hour’s waiting at the station before the train started.
We reached Paris at 9.10 and drove to the Hôtel de l’Europe and then wandered about for the day seeing sights. Tried for but could see no good MSS. Drove to the Bois de Boulogne and went to the Pré Catalan, for which I cannot say much. By dint of watering the grass vigorously they get it to look very green, but it is coarse stuff, more like a water meadow in texture than an English lawn. The Pré Catalan without a soul in it except the show men, etc. eating al fresco dinners, is rather slow, so we came back soon. In the afternoon went to the Hippodrome. The best thing probably was the racing between three men each riding a four-in-hand and going at a great pace. Dined at Véfour’s and then off to the station, and in a rash moment, and in submission to the peremptory order of a grand railway clerk, booked ourselves through from Paris to Turin. The train was very full but I rested tolerably well and awoke in the morning just in time to get a glimpse of the cathedral at Tournus.[3] At Mâcon we changed to another train and crossing the Saône turned off toward Geneva; the country invisible in a thick fog till we reached Ambérieu, the junction with the line from Lyons, where it rose sufficiently to disclose an exceedingly picturesque situation. From this point up to Culoz, where we left the line, the country is very wild and beautiful. The railway runs up a very narrow winding valley hemmed in with grand hills, showing here and there fine bold bluffs of rock. The stream, a mountain torrent, was nowhere—but wide banks of well-worn stones show that it is powerful enough after rain or in the winter and spring. At Culoz we embarked on a long and very shaky steamboat, the “Coquette,” and going stern foremost a half mile down the rapid Rhone (here a dirty white colour) we finally turned out of it into a sort of canal which connects the Lac du Bourget with the Rhone. Our steamer was so long that in getting along we invariably just touched land at one end and occasionally at both, but by dint of great energy in the steering and by aid of men who ran along the bank to push us off, we were safely discharged into the lake. The water here is of the blue green which one remembers at Geneva. The banks are precipitous and the lake, though not very large, very pretty. The Dent du Chat on the south-west is a fine hill, and the high bold hill above Culoz stands out to great advantage over the immense, perfectly flat, meadow which occupies the space between the Rhone and the lake, and which to-day is full of haymakers,—I should say some two or three hundred—all hard at work. We embarked at a temporary kind of port called S. Innocent and went thence by railway to Chambéry. Here we stopped for five hours to see the cathedral, wash and eat. The cathedral is of small interest. Its flamboyant west front is fairly good of its kind. On the whole the church wants dignity, and gives the impression of a parish church more than of a cathedral. The castle which rises above the west side of the town has not much old remaining. The chapel is poor flamboyant with some good stained glass in the apse. The king has a fine papered and cushioned gallery at the west end. I looked into one or two other churches but found no old features.
The situation of Chambéry is exquisite. It is hemmed in on all sides by mountains, and their outlines are generally unusually sharp and bold, finishing as many of them do with great bluffs of rock. A figure resting on the fore-quarters of four elephants who spout water from their trunks is the most remarkable modern feature in the city. It is to the memory of General ——[4], a great benefactor. The streets contain few old houses: I saw one of the sixteenth century nearly all windows. The fronts of the shops have the old arrangement of a stone arch the whole width of the front and a bold stone counter.
We left Chambéry at 5.30 P.M. for S. Jean de Maurienne. The scenery as long as we could see it was beautiful, but the clouds were low and at the point where Mont Blanc ought to have been seen they effectually prevented our seeing anything. At S. Jean we took possession of the diligence for Turin and saw nothing till we were well up on the mountain from Lons-le-Bourg. It took us two hours to scale this height, pulled at a slow pace by nine mules and two horses. The ascent was uninteresting but we gradually came upon more and more snow and the pass increased in interest. There is a small lake at the top and a dreary drive across a crest led us to the fine part of the descent. This is, for the last hour and a half before reaching Susa, singularly fine, finer indeed, I am inclined to think, than any descent I have yet seen. The mountains are fine in their outlines, and the road winds backward and forward between chestnut and walnut trees. Susa is mainly remarkable for its beautiful situation among mountains with snowy peaks always in sight, and a burning sun just now. The cathedral has a good campanile of brick and a west front built on by the side of an old Roman gateway, whose scale makes that of the church seem very small. The spire of the cathedral is covered with small pieces of copper (I think) cut like slates. The interior is painted all over in the worst possible taste. Indeed throughout the Sardinian dominions there seems to be a passion for painting shaded imitations of tracery upon walls and groining. Chambéry cathedral is a notable specimen of this and Susa not much better. We left Susa at 8.30 P.M. and reached Turin at 10.30. I expected nothing here and was agreeably disappointed. A city cannot fail to be charming which has at the end of every street such a view, of mountains and snow at one end and hills at the other, as Turin can show. And then, though quite modern, its streets have that narrow picturesque character so universal in Italy, and in every way leave a pleasanter impression than one would expect from maps and descriptions....