Annie Vivanti - A Journey to Crete, Costantinople, Naples and Florence - Three Months Abroad

It was on the morning of the 18th of March, 1865, that, “equipped from top to toe,” I kissed all my little ones, shook hands with the kind friends who were to take care of them, and started with my husband on our grand wedding tour. Yes, this was to be our wedding tour; for the one we made directly after our wedding, more than ten years ago, did not deserve that name; and since then we had never travelled without, what is most properly called encumbrances, not meaning trunks or bandboxes, but babies of different sizes and ages. Our first wedding trip! Shall I confess that it did not extend farther than Broadstairs! How times change! Our wishes were more limited then; I am sure we thought we had gone quite as far as people could wish to go, for we went by water, and the weather being rather windy, we were both very nearly sea-sick when we arrived. But no more of these old bye-gone times, I have other things to tell. When we drove off, and I looked once more back, my baby clapped her little fat hands together, and called out, “Lumps of delight, lumps of delight.” A turban! a sword! a drum! screamed the boys, and off we drove on our way to Crete. Yes, to Crete! where nobody has ever been that I know of, since Theseus.

But before we got there, we arrived at London Bridge. There we met dear Mme. M–, whom we had promised to see safely to Cologne. She is the mother of one of the greatest scholars of our time, and the widow of one who would certainly have been one of the greatest German poets, had he not died at the age of thirty-three.

On the evening of the 18th we arrived safely and well at Brussels, and had a few hours time before the train started for Cologne. So we set out for a short stroll through the town by gaslight. It looked just as I had thought it would look, gay and lively. “A little Paris,” as it is so often called. The “Galleries” reminded me of the Palais Royal, and the people that leisurely walked about seemed as well dressed, and as much “on pleasure bent,” as those of the Boulevards. The shops where “knicknacks” are sold look as elegant as those of Paris, and in others there is the same delightful display of fruit and flowers, delicacies, and confectionary.

I could, of course, not walk through the streets and market-place of Brussels without thinking of Egmont and Hoorn, and of the splendid scene in Goethe’s Egmont, where Klärchen calls upon the people to save her lover. I also remembered the poor sisters, Charlotte and Emily Brontë. My husband thought of Napoleon and Wellington, and Becky Sharp, and laughed again at the thought of Jos Sedley’s flight from Brussels.

With an appetite stimulated by the walk, the keen March air, and the very inviting exhibition of dainties in several shop-windows, we dined, and then left for Cologne, where we arrived at five in the morning, and parted from Mme. M–, our dear friend, for such she had become to us, we feeling rather anxious how she would get on without us; she full of gratitude for the little we had been able to do for her, blessing us many times, and wishing us a safe return to our children; to which I said “Amen,” with all my heart.

As we had a few hours to spare before the train started for Coblentz, we went out to look at the Cathedral, which I had not seen for several years. I was pleased to see that the giant work has advanced much in that comparatively short time; they told me it would be quite finished in about six years, but that I humbly doubt.

It was a wretchedly cold morning; a sharp easterly wind blowing, which after a night passed in a railway carriage, seemed to freeze me. It chilled my love for the beautiful. I was not very deeply impressed; not even by the interior of the Cathedral, although I know it is wondrous grand and beautiful.

What a comfortable hotel, “The Giant,” at Coblentz is! And how we enjoyed our dinner at the table d’hôte, sitting down to it like civilized people after a thorough toilette. As March is not the time for English tourists on the Rhine, we had, instead of whispered English conversation, the loud talk of the Prussian officers, who had the table almost to themselves. They were most of them fine looking men, and had such a number of stars and crosses, and medals, that after seeing them I wondered that there should be still some poor little Danes left alive. I thought that these young giants must have killed them all, being all so distinguished for valour, which many of them were too young to have proved even against the rebels in Baden in 1848.

After dinner we drove to Stolzenfels, and enjoyed the view, which all who have seen it will remember with pleasure. I had looked from Stolzenfels upon Lahneck and Upper and Lower Lahnstein, when the hills that rise behind were covered with the glory of September foliage; but even without that gay dress, the scene is lovely still. We drove back to the hotel in spirits that were in harmony with the bright scene around us and the merry people that animated it. The influence of the fine continental air and the bright sunshine upon the spirits of those who have breathed the thick air of London for a whole year, with the exception perhaps of a few months at Brighton, is wonderfully exhilarating. All who have experienced it must wish for the Continent again and again, and will prefer to spend the autumn abroad, although the English lakes, Wales and Scotland, offer perhaps as much scenic beauty as Germany or France.

On the morning of the 20th we left Coblentz, and went by rail to Mayence, passing the most beautiful spots of the Rhine, enjoying it much, and forming the resolution to buy one of the ruined castles, restore it and live for ever on the Rhine, with a boat to row on the river and a guitar to accompany the German ballads we would sing on a summer evening. At Mayence we left the Rhine, and turned eastward across the Hessian plains towards Bavaria. The cold wind we had now to face made us shut all the windows, and I must confess in spite of my belonging to the Ladies’ Sanitary Association, and having read Florence Nightingale’s book and Combe’s too, we shut also the ventilators, and unstrapped all our shawls and wrappers. I looked wistfully at the snow that had appeared on the ground soon after we left Mayence, and which grew thicker and thicker, glittering in the sunshine, like a cold beauty that smiles but does not melt. The sky was perfectly cloudless, the sun brilliant and warm, the wind cutting and sharp; the shades deep and cold; after sunset the window panes became covered with frost, but not like in England, where it springs up in a very short time, and afterwards disappears as quickly, and which is of a poor tame pattern, always resembling artichoke leaves. Here the cold worked slowly, deliberately and elaborately, like a careful artist: each pane became a picture, showing a variety of beautiful and fanciful shapes and forms, flowers, miniature forests, multitudes of stars, brilliants and crystals. Gradually, it shut us completely out from the world, and after we had passed Nuremberg and Erlangen, we heard and saw no more of it, till we arrived at Passau, the Austrian frontier, where people have to undergo the ordeal of the douane.