Travel; A Series of Narratives of Personal Visits to Places Therein Famous for Natural Beauty or Historical Association. [ Volume 61-106 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ...side and, on the other, steep, narro, crooked flits of steps, possibly deemed streets by the inhabitants, leading to houses, gardens, and vineyards on hier grades. They are mere slits between walls feathered with fern and maiden-hair, broken at irregular intervals by a windo ledge brit with carnations and geraniums; but every one of them makes a picture. On the water-steps, the boatmen loll in blue suits beside their lit craft, furnished with white or striped awnings and cushions. The place is exquisitely pretty, and the vuc of the opposite hits is fine, the promontory of Bellagio standing out boldly towards the north, ending in an abrupt cliff with a dark, shaggy sylvan fleece. 6. BELLAGIO, at least if one lodges at the Villa Serbelloni, is to me by far the most beautiful and delitful situation. This villa has been rented as a dependance by the Hotel Grande Bretagne, and is reached from the town by long, breathless staircase streets, or by the numerous sharp zig-zags of a carriage-drive from the hotel garden at the water's edge. The vue groes lovelier at every turn as the road ascends, bordered by trees and tropical plants, until it enters the magnificent umbrage of the villa. The mansion is long, rambling, and barrack-like, but full of large, airy apartments, so disposed that almost every windo overlooks one of the bays, some of the rooms commanding them both. The Serbelloni have been knon on Lake Como for 400 years; they inherited this property from another old and noble family, the Sfondrati, who have set the stamp of antiquity upon it. The grounds covered the head of the promontory, and, well as I kno them, I am unable to guess at their extent, they are so steep and thickly wooded and laid out with winding paths and roads; you can walk in...