United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For several years he had been in the habit of spending six or eight weeks of the summer in Italy and the Canton Ticino, generally making Faido his headquarters. Many a page of his books was written while resting by the fountain of some subalpine village or waiting in the shade of the chestnuts till the light came so that he could continue a sketch.
So, before it was yet dark, I came into Faido, and there I slept, having at last, after so many adventures, crossed the threshold and occupied Italy. Next day before sunrise I went out, and all the valley was adorned and tremulous with the films of morning.
Pour moi je les abborre." The Late King Vittorio Emanuele The King said: "I can eat no such luncheon in times like these give me some garlic." The garlic being brought, he ate it along with a great hunch of bread, but would touch nothing else. The Bishop of Chichester at Faido
The summer-time being come: and Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como lying far behind us: and we resting at Faido, a Swiss village, near the awful rocks and mountains, the everlasting snows and roaring cataracts, of the Great Saint Gothard: hearing the Italian tongue for the last time on this journey: let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness towards a people, naturally well-disposed, and patient, and sweet-tempered.
I will spare the reader any description of the town, and would only bid him think of Domodossola or Faido. Suffice it that I found myself taken before the chief magistrate, and by his orders was placed in an apartment with two other people, who were the first I had seen looking anything but well and handsome.
Here it may be as well to remind our girls that the Canton Ticino, though Italian in language, in scenery, in architecture, and, in fact, in all its characteristics, yet politically belongs to Switzerland. After passing Faido the scenery becomes, if possible, more beautiful, and at Bellinzona, the capital of the Canton, we saw our beau-ideal of Italian landscape.
There is a house at Ronco where refreshments and excellent Faido beer can be had. The old lady who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw her sitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley as though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny.
Now the loud-voiced Ticino was our companion, and we swept down through an open valley to Faido, where we met the first human being we had seen since we left Gurtnellen. It was a very old man, with a red cap, like a stocking, pulled close upon his head.
I have stayed there two or three times and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signer Lombardi of the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place of resort. I took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; here the path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached.
When I was at Faido in the Val Leventina last summer there was a lady there who remembered me in New Zealand; she had brought her children to Switzerland for their holiday; good people, all of them. They had friends coming to them, a certain canon and his sister, and there was a talk that the Bishop of Chichester might possibly come too. In course of time the canon and his sister came.
Word Of The Day