No house was ever built in this immediate neighborhood for
any such natural purpose as induces people to build them on other sites.
Even our hotel, at which we now arrived, could not be said to be a
natural growth of the soil; it had originally been a whim of one of the
Grand Dukes of Tuscany,--a hunting-palace,--intended for habitation only
during a few weeks of the year. Of all dreary hotels I ever alighted at,
methinks this is the most so; but on first arriving I merely followed the
waiter to look at our rooms, across stone-paved basement-halls dismal as
Etruscan tombs; up dim staircases, and along shivering corridors, all of
stone, stone, stone, nothing but cold stone. After glancing at these
pleasant accommodations, my wife and I, with J-----, set out to ascend
the hill and visit the town of Radicofani.
It is not more than a quarter of a mile above our hotel, and is
accessible by a good piece of road, though very steep. As we approached
the town, we were assailed by some little beggars; but this is the case
all through Italy, in city or solitude, and I think the mendicants of
Radicofani are fewer than its proportion.
Pages:
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723