The Highest Villages In The
Immediate Neighbourhood Of Faido Are Campello And Molare; They Can
Be Seen From The Market-Place Of The Town, And Are Well Worth The
Trouble Of A Climb.
CHAPTER VI - Piora
An excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val
Piora, which I have already more than once mentioned. There is a
large hotel here which has been opened some years, but has not
hitherto proved the success which it was hoped it would be. I have
stayed there two or three times and found it very comfortable;
doubtless, now that Signor 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. 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. She had a somewhat
stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline nose;
her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she
wore round her head. Her employment and the wistful far-away look
she cast upon the expanse below made a very fine ensemble. "She
would have afforded," as Sir Walter Scott says, "a study for a
Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter existed at the period," {9}
but she must have been a smart-looking handsome girl once.
She brightened up in conversation. I talked about Piora, which I
already knew, and the Lago Tom, the highest of the three lakes.
She said she knew the Lago Tom. I said laughingly, "Oh, I have no
doubt you do. We've had many a good day at the Lago Tom, I know."
She looked down at once.
In spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of
forty, and altogether she was a very grand old lady. Her house is
scrupulously clean. While I watched her spinning, I thought of
what must so often occur to summer visitors. I mean what sort of a
look-out the old woman must have in winter, when the wind roars and
whistles, and the snow drives down the valley with a fury of which
we in England can have little conception. What a place to see a
snowstorm from! and what a place from which to survey the landscape
next morning after the storm is over and the air is calm and
brilliant. There are such mornings: I saw one once, but I was at
the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco. Ronco would
take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of the
valley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deep
shadow below, though the upper hillsides may be seen to have the
sun upon them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 30 of 145
Words from 15210 to 15733
of 75076
