JULY-SEPTEMBER 1818
Innspruck—Tyrol and the Tyrolese—From Innspruck to Munich—Monuments and churches—Theatricals—Journey from Munich to Vienna on a floss—Trouble with a passport—Complicated system of Austrian money—Description of Vienna—The Prater—The theatres—Schiller's Joan of Arc—A Kinderballet—The young Napoleon at Schoenbrunn—Journey from Vienna to Prague.
INNSPRUCK, 15th July.
I had engaged with a vetturino to convey me from Verona to Innspruck for four louis d'or and to be spesato. A Roman gentleman and his lady were my fellow travellers; they were going to pass the summer months at a small campagne they possess in the Tyrol. We stopped the first night at Roveredo. The road from Verona to Roveredo is on the banks of the Adige (called in German the Etsch) in a narrow and deep valley, shut up on both sides by mountains, almost immediately on leaving Verona. We found the weather extremely hot in this valley. Roveredo seems to be a very neat clean little city, and the Adige flows with astonishing rapidity along this narrow valley. The women of Roveredo have the reputation of being very beautiful; and I recollect having seen two Roveredo girls at Venice, who were models of female beauty. They have a happy mixture of German and Italian blood and manners, but Italian is the language of the country. The second morning of our journey we arrived and stopped to dinner at the venerable and celebrated city of Trent. The country we passed thro' is much the same as that between Verona and Roveredo, the Adige being on our left. Trent lies also in the valley of the Adige, shut up between the Alps. The whole valley appears in high cultivation. The streets of Trent are broad; the Cathedral is a remarkably fine Gothic building. In the church of Sta Maria Maggiore was held the famous council of Trent. There are a great many silk mills in Trent. German as well as Italian is spoken; indeed the two languages are equally familiar to most of the inhabitants. In the evening we arrived at Sabern after passing thro' Lavis. One description will serve for these towns and indeed for most of the towns in the Tyrol, viz., that of being neat, clean and solidly built. The inns are excellent and the inhabitants very civil. The Adige runs close to the road and parallel to it, nearly the whole way to Bolsano or Botzen, where Italian ceases to be spoken and German is the national tongue. Botzen is a large and flourishing place.
One general description will serve for the Tyrol, regarding the towns, adjacent country, customs, inns, inhabitants, dress and manners.
First the towns are fully as neat, clean and well built as those in Switzerland; the country too is very similar, tho' not quite on so grand a scale of sublimity; but you have fully as much variety in mountain and valley, glacier and cascade. The climate is exactly the same as that of Switzerland, being very hot in the valleys in summer. The inns are clean and good, the provisions excellent and well cooked, the wines much better than those of Switzerland; there is good attendance by females and all at a far cheaper rate than in Switzerland. The Tyroleans are much more courteous in their manners than the Swiss; they have not that boorishness and are of more elegant figure than their Helvetic neighbours. The women of the Tyrol are in general remarkably beautiful, exceedingly well shaped and of fine complexions.
In the towns the bourgeoises dress well, something in the French style, and it is their custom to salute travellers who pass by kissing their hands to them. The dress of the female peasantry, however, is unpleasing to the eye and so uncouth, that it would make the most beautiful women appear homely. In the first place I will speak of their head dress, of which there are three different kinds, two of which are as bizarre as can be imagined. The first sort is a cap of sheepskin, the fleece of which is as white as snow, and the cap is of conical shape, the base being exceeding large in proportion to its height, and resembles much the sugar loaves made in Egypt. The second is a black scull cap, with the three pieces of stiff black gaze, sticking out like the vanes of a windmill; so that when put on the head, one vane stands upright from the forehead and the other two from each ear. The third head dress is a broad straw hat, and I wish they would stick to this coiffure, and discard the two others. Then the waist of their dress is as long as
…du pole antarctique an détroit de Davis.[121]
Their petticoats are exceedingly short, scarcely reaching the calf of the legs, which are enveloped in a pair of flaming red stockings. Who the devil could invent such an ungraceful dress for a female?
The costume of the men on the contrary is becoming and graceful. It resembles very much the costume of the Andalusians. The hat is exactly the same, the crown being small and the rim very broad.