Innspruck - Tyrol and the Tyrolese - From Innspruck to Munich - Monuments and
churches - Theatricals - Journey from Munich to Vienna on a floss - Trouble
with a passport - Complicated system of Austrian money - Description of
Vienna - The Prater - The theatres - Schiller's Joan of Arc - A
Kinderballet - The young Napoleon at Schoenbrunn - Journey from Vienna to
Prague.
INNSPRUCK, 15th July.
I had engaged with a vetturino to convey me from Verona to Innspruck for
four louis d'or and to be spesato. A Roman gentleman and his lady were
my fellow travellers; they were going to pass the summer months at a small
campagne they possess in the Tyrol. We stopped the first night at
Roveredo. The road from Verona to Roveredo is on the banks of the Adige
(called in German the Etsch) in a narrow and deep valley, shut up on both
sides by mountains, almost immediately on leaving Verona. We found the
weather extremely hot in this valley. Roveredo seems to be a very neat
clean little city, and the Adige flows with astonishing rapidity along this
narrow valley. The women of Roveredo have the reputation of being very
beautiful; and I recollect having seen two Roveredo girls at Venice, who
were models of female beauty. They have a happy mixture of German and
Italian blood and manners, but Italian is the language of the country. The
second morning of our journey we arrived and stopped to dinner at the
venerable and celebrated city of Trent. The country we passed thro' is much
the same as that between Verona and Roveredo, the Adige being on our left.
Trent lies also in the valley of the Adige, shut up between the Alps. The
whole valley appears in high cultivation. The streets of Trent are broad;
the Cathedral is a remarkably fine Gothic building. In the church of Sta
Maria Maggiore was held the famous council of Trent. There are a great many
silk mills in Trent. German as well as Italian is spoken; indeed the two
languages are equally familiar to most of the inhabitants. In the evening
we arrived at Sabern after passing thro' Lavis. One description will serve
for these towns and indeed for most of the towns in the Tyrol, viz., that
of being neat, clean and solidly built. The inns are excellent and the
inhabitants very civil. The Adige runs close to the road and parallel to
it, nearly the whole way to Bolsano or Botzen, where Italian ceases to be
spoken and German is the national tongue. Botzen is a large and flourishing
place.
One general description will serve for the Tyrol, regarding the towns,
adjacent country, customs, inns, inhabitants, dress and manners.
First the towns are fully as neat, clean and well built as those in
Switzerland; the country too is very similar, tho' not quite on so grand a
scale of sublimity; but you have fully as much variety in mountain and
valley, glacier and cascade. The climate is exactly the same as that of
Switzerland, being very hot in the valleys in summer.
