Ferrara to Venice--Monument to Ariosto in Ferrara--A description of
Venice--Padua--Vicenza--Verona--Cremona--Return to Milan--The Scala
theatre--Verona again--From Verona to Innspruck.

It is the custom for most travellers going to Genoa to embark on board of a
_felucca_ at Spezia, which lies on the sea coast, not far from Sarzana: but
I preferred to go by land, and I cannot conceive why anyone should expose
himself to the risks, inconveniences and delays of a sea passage, when it
is so easy to go by land thro' the Appennines. I started accordingly the
following morning, mounted on a mule, and attended by a muleteer with
another mule to convey my portmanteau. I found this journey neither
dangerous nor difficult, but on the contrary agreeable and romantic. The
road is only a bridle road. I paid forty-eight franks for my two mules and
driver, and started at seven in the morning from Sarzana. The wild
appearance of the Appennines, the aweful solitudes and the highly
picturesque points of view that present themselves at the various
sinuosities of the mountains and valleys; the view of the sea from the
heights that tower above the towns of Oneglia and Sestri Levante, rendered
this journey one of the most interesting I have ever made. I stopped to
dine at Borghetto and brought to the night at Sestri Levante, breakfasted
the next morning at Rapallo, and arrived the same evening at four o'clock
in Genoa. Borghetto is a little insignificant town situate in a narrow
valley surrounded on all sides by the lofty crags of the Appennines. Sestri
Levante is a long and very straggling town, part of it being situated on
the sea shore, and the other part on the gorge of the mountain descending
towards the sea beach; so that the former part of the town lies nearly at
right angles with the latter, with a considerable space intervening. The
road for the last four miles between Borghetto and Sestri Levante is a
continual descent. The inn was very comfortable and good at Sestri Levante.
The beginning of the road between Sestri and Rapallo is on the beach till
near Rapallo, when it strikes again into the mountains and is of
considerable ascent. Rapallo is a very neat pretty place, situate on an
eminence commanding a fine view of the sea. The greater part of the road
between Rapallo and Genoa is on the sea-coast, but cut along the mountains
which here form a bluff with the sea. Villas, gardens and vineyards line
the whole of this route and nothin