Promenade

“ It is not a single promenade: there are ten avenues, one beside another, and each more beautiful than the last—streets for driving, streets for riding, walks for persons who like a crowd, and walks for those who prefer to be alone, divided from each other by endless hedges of myrtle, bordered and broken by gardens and groves, in which appear statues and fountains, and little footpaths which cross each other. On fête-days one may there enjoy a charming spectacle. From one end of the avenues to the other pass two processions of people, carriages, and horsemen, going in opposite directions. ”

“ The morning promenade is a wonderful sight; such a host of bilious faces, such an endless variety of eccentric costumes, such a Babel of tongues, among which the shrill twang of our fair American cousins is peculiarly prominent, could be found in no other place in the civilized world. A moralist would assuredly find here abundant food for reflection on the wonderful powers of self-deception possessed by mankind. ”

“ The tide of fashion rolls where a simple people lived their daily life of care and toil. Here congregate people of every nation, the old and the young; and the cosmopolitan character of the promenade is a source of great entertainment to the stranger. As we approach the Digue or chief promenade, which is elevated fully a hundred feet above the beach, we are struck with the beauty of this grand esplanade, a hundred feet wide and extending miles along the shore. On the city side are many handsome buildings; residences, hotels, cafés and some stores. ”

“ The splendid view to be obtained from such a promenade in a dust-free and smoke-free country can hardly be pictured to a city bred man or a countryman jogging along the hedge and weed throttled country road. ”

“ Imagine a long wide level road, a mile or so long, generally so chosen as to have a fine view, with footpaths on each side, lines of poplar trees, a fountain at each end and a statue in the middle, and this description will stand pretty nearly for almost every promenade of the kind I have seen in Spain or Spanish America. ”

“ There are also tens of thousands of people who come to gaze at the shops and the passing throng, to whom it is a treat to pass an evening among the throng and lights, and to whom from childhood the mere fact of a promenade has been accepted as a pleasure. ”

“ Sometimes there is a chance for a promenade just about sunset, and sometimes not; in any event, the grass is so wet that we can only follow the roads if we would avoid coming home with our feet soaked.
"We have arranged our plans in such a way as to do our sight-seeing in the forenoon, and devote the afternoon to writing and sleeping. ”

“ There are many pleasant walks and drives around, but most of them require a whole day, and are more preferable as a drive than as a walk. The shortest is to the lighthouse and back, and this is only a very easy promenade, taking about an hour ”

“ In reality, however, it is one of the most captivating promenades to be found anywhere; and I always felt it to be in itself a very cheerful scene, whether when gay with its moving crowds in a morning, or when in the quiet repose of still life. ”

“ This will not have much interest for the lover of the beautiful, but up to this point he will have regaled himself with a promenade along a beautiful sea-bordered roadway, whose opposite side has been flanked with rose-laurel, palms, orange-trees, and many exotic plants and shrubs of semi-tropical lands. ”

“ These buildings occupy a space fully a mile in length, but the promenade with its tiled pavement skirts the sea for many miles. Chairs and benches are placed at convenient intervals for the use of the public, and every day, especially in the afternoon, thousands of fashionably dressed people appear upon this walk, rejoicing in the opportunity to display elaborate gowns ”

“ In the hours of recreation we are accustomed to promenade in the Park—a delightful spot, so suggestive of the blushing country!—during our ramble of yesterday, a young lady under my charge was unfortunate enough to lose her ring. ”

“ As for the vaunted promenade—the man who would avail himself thereof, would, probably waltz with grace and comfort to himself on the deck of the Lively Sally in a sea-way: it requires some practice even to stand upright without holding on ”

“ Why is there not, in every populous vicinage or adjoining to every town, a public gravelled, or paved, Walk, provided with covered and open seats, to which, from spring to autumn, the inhabitants might resort, and promenade between the hours of six and eight or nine. ”

“ A pleasant evening drive, or promenade, is obtained upon the winding road leading to the Government-hill, which passes close by what was formerly, and even still retains the name of, the Botanic or Experimental Garden. ”

“ There and back was my usual promenade. Seven miles should be an average walk for a man past fifty every day. I have made fifteen and twenty miles without fatigue. I always dined in the middle of the day. ”

“ Although February, the oranges are ripe, and roses and carnations are already in full blossom; the Jardin Public is a blaze of brilliant colour, and as one turns from the Promenade into the clean white streets the fragrance of violets hawked in huge bunches at four sous by the flower-girls greets the nostrils at every corner. ”

“ A hump-backed moon, the colour of an old guinea, was lying large upon the horizon; fairy lamps bordered the paths that wound about the bosky cliffs; and from time to time bursting rockets were reflected in streaks of colour upon the tranquil and hueless sea. They strolled along until they found a deserted corner of the promenade, where, leaning over the parapet, they watched swarming on the sands below the people who were come to watch the fireworks as freely as they might watch the stars every night of their lives. ”

“ At three o'clock in the afternoon, all the fashionable world at Nice may be seen on the Promenade des Anglais—a charming place, for the wide walk, bordered with palms, flowers, and tropical shrubs, is bounded on one side by the sea, on the other by the grand drive, lined with hotels and villas, while beyond lie orange orchards and the hills. Many nations are represented, many languages spoken, many costumes worn, and on a sunny day the spectacle is as gay and brilliant as a carnival. ”

“ Between the promenaders and the side-walks are seated hundreds and hundreds of people at small tables, smoking and taking granita, (a first cousin to ice-cream;) on the side-walks are more employing themselves in the same way. ”

“ Nice very pleasant, climate lovely, and sea beautiful. We lived in our own rooms, and saw no one but the 180 doctor and Consul and a few American callers. A pleasant drive every day on the Promenade,–a wide curving wall along the bay with hotels and Pensions on one side and a flowery walk on the other. Gay carriages and people always to be seen; shops full of fine and curious things ”

“ From this point, it is interesting to walk up the hill, following the windings and turnings of the street. Let the traveller not fail to look into the queer old back-yards, and at the gardens, filled with old-fashioned flowers, gorgeous in their splendor, nor to turn and view the prospect toward the town. ”

“ There are many ways of seeing landscape quite as good; and none more vivid, in spite of canting dilettantes, than from a railway train. But landscape on a walking tour is quite accessory. He who is indeed of the brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque, but of certain jolly humours—of the hope and spirit with which the march begins at morning, and the peace and spiritual repletion of the evening’s rest. ”

“ Whether they make comfortable sleeping quarters for those within or not, they make glad the heart of those without. The passer-by can enjoy, free of charge, the thrill born of beauty, whether it be in nature, like the sunset through the trees across the park, or in art, like a cornice in perfect scale. ”

“ The road rises as it leaves the town, and a little way beyond my windows it climbs to a summit, so that, walking forward, one sees nothing in front but the sharp, slightly curved edge of the road against the sky. Though I have travelled this way so often, each time that I set eyes on the clean cut of the road and the great emptiness beyond, something in me is thrilled, faintly yet perceptibly, like taut wires troubled by a gust of wind. ”

“ The close of the holiday season sets most of us reflecting on the philosophy of travel, and many of us upon the simplest form of it, the philosophy of walking tours. Among serious and imaginative pedestrians there are only two schools or parties, and one school maintains that the pedestrian should go forth without map or compass, and wander until a wood beckons to him or a pathway points like a finger. ”

“ Even in winter, when you have to walk briskly all day, and there is no sitting on any bank of earth or fallen tree to write a fragment or rest, and when there is no sleeping out, but only the prospect of freezing at some wretched coffee-house or inn, the road still lies outside the door of your house full of charm and mystery. You want to know where the roads lead to, and what may be on them beyond the faint horizon’s line. ”

“ When you get into the road, though far from the town, and feel the sand under your feet, it is as if you had reached your own gravel walk. You no longer 240 hear the whip-poor-will, nor regard your shadow, for here you expect a fellow-traveller. You catch yourself walking merely. ”

“ The street is the true path of the spirit. To walk through it, or roll or swing on top of a 'bus through it—the miles of faces, all these tottering, toddling, swinging miles of legs and stomachs; and on all sides of you, and in the windows and along the walks, the things they wear, and the things they eat, and the things they pour down their little throats, and the things they pray to and curse and worship and swindle in! ”

“ But take knapsack and stick, walk towards the hills by short day's journeys,—ten or twelve miles a day—taking a week from some starting-place sixty or seventy miles away: sleep at the pretty little wayside inns, or the rough village ones; then take the hills as they tempt you, following glen or shore as your eye glances or your heart guides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion, and of everything which it is the ordinary traveler's duty to see, or pride to do. ”

“ The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place. ”

“ Waiting unobserved under the awning, occasionally, too, I hear voices as the throng goes by on the pavement—pleasant tones of people chatting and the human sunshine of laughter. The atmosphere is full of movement, full of light, and life streams to and fro. ”

“ The road over which we must travel is bordered on either side by seductive pastures from which gush life-giving springs, topped with luxurious trees of soul-satisfying color that protect from the blazing sun or the congealing wind, and on either side are pathways so softly cushioned that even the most tender feet may tread them without fear of wound or blister. The sign-posts to this road are the four little volumes written two thousand years ago. ”

“ Don’t let us take our walk as if in a rush, but slowly and gently. Please let us make the circuit of the city walls twice or three times so that we may contemplate so splendid a view the more peacefully and freely. ”

“ And you warm into a better mood with the walk and the talk, and make the mile or two five or six miles; indeed the sun is setting, and a deepening dusk in the sky shows a pale star here and there, while you are yet a mile from home. A sort of clearness and freshness seems to have come into the air since you started homewards; and you notice as you walk on, the frosty glitter in the stars, and you perceive that the road is actually growing rough and hard under your feet, and the road-side puddles are gathering a lace-work at their edge. ”

“ There is a path from the valley for the strangers, the path by which they came; and when the sun stares forth again upon the world, the way shall be open, and there shall be safety for you until your travel ends in the quick world whither you go. ”

“ The Daily Walk. Walking is to be commended, not as a holiday pastime, merely, but as part of the routine of life, in season and out. Particularly to city-dwellers, to men whose occupations are sedentary, is walking to be commended as recreation. Will a man assert himself too busy?—his neighbor plays a game of golf a week ”

“ My traveling afoot, for many years, has been chiefly in busy city streets or in the country roads into which they run—not far from the day’s work [69] or from the thoroughfares of the world’s concerns.
“Of such journeys on foot which I recall with greatest pleasure are some that I have made in the encircling of cities. More than once I have walked around Manhattan Island (an afternoon’s or a day’s adventure within the reach of thousands) , keeping as close as possible to the water’s edge all the way round. ”

“ The way a journey is gone, which is walking, is a wine, a mellow claret, stimulating to observation, to thought, to speculation, to the flow of talk, gradually, decently warming the blood. Rightly taken (which manner this paper attempts to set forth) , walking is among the pleasures of the mind. It is a call-boy to wit, a hand-maiden to cultivation. ”

“ Three or four miles was not thought too long a walk for a healthy child of five years, and that road in the old time, led through a rural Paradise beautiful at every season,—whether it was the time of song sparrows and violets, or wild roses, or coral-hung barberry bushes, or of fallen leaves and snow drifts. ”

“ To any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk, over not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. ”

“ To a lady and gentleman accustomed to the smooth floor of a drawing-room, having carriages and riding horses at their disposal for every excursion, and whose pedestrian feats were limited to a turn round the park when the weather proved unusually fine, this path offered difficulties enough--and then the foggy tempestuous weather to boot! ”