[Florence—Friday, 6 April 1860]
Friday 6th we were to be starting for Bologna. Oh! what a day we had. The whole diligence was engaged except the Banquette so in that we had to go. Well! I said to myself, it will be dark in the morning when we get up and dark at night when we get down and lovely while up but alas! there is no peace in a Diligence. We were almost overturned and obliged to get out about noon to walk up the hill and the discomforts were without end. Not the least was that we were until midnight getting to Bologna; indeed I thought we should never arrive at all, because it was very mountainous and the horses walked almost the whole distance. We had one great compensation. The scenery was beautiful and at times quite like Switzerland, can there be higher praise? There were stormy mists driving over the mountains which made them look like Landseer’s pictures of the Scotch hills. These snowy shoulders shone out with a gloomy majesty among the clouds. In the afternoon we emerged upon the great Lombard plain to find it as Tennyson did covered with rain, rain.
