Wine is drank at
discretion. The wine of Lombardy is light and not ill flavored; it is far
weaker than any wine I know of, but it has an excellent quality, that of
facilitating digestion. A cup of strong coffee is generally made for you in
the morning, for which you pay three or four soldi (sous), and in giving
five or six soldi to the waiter, all your expenses are paid supposing you
are spesato, i.e., that the vetturino pays for your supper and bed; if
not, your charges are left to the conscience of the aubergiste, which in
Italy is in general of prodigious width. I therefore advise every traveller
who goes with a vetturino to be a spesato, otherwise he will have to pay
four or five times as much and not be a whit better regaled. The
vetturini generally pay from three to three and a half francs for the
supper and bed of their passengers. As the vetturini invariably make a
halt of an hour and half or two hours at mid-day in some town or village,
this halt enables you to take your dejeuner a la fourchette, which you
pay for yourself, unless you stipulate for the payment of that also with
the vetturino by paying something more, say one a half franc per diem for
that. In this part, and indeed in the whole of the north of Italy not a
female servant is to be seen at the inns and men make the beds.
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