Sightseeing

“ Years of travel fatigue us with the latter, but never with Nature in her varying moods, with the peculiarities of races, or with the manners and customs of each new locality and country. The delight in natural objects grows by experience in every cultivated and receptive mind. The rugged architecture of lofty mountains, the aspect of tumbling waterfalls, noble rivers, glowing sunsets, broad land and sea-views—each of these has a special, never-tiring and impressive individuality. ”

“ We need to know of the means of travel, of the state of the roads and where they ran, of the inns and how one fared in them, of fashionable society and how it impressed the tourist, as well as the impression the tourist made upon society: in short, in so far as is possible in a book that must touch many things lightly if at all, we must endeavor to follow the tourist from place to place and see with him some of the sights that most interested him. ”

“ While American tourists are delightedly visiting and minutely describing the most hidden recesses of beauty among the mountains, plains, seas, lakes, and rivers of Europe, there are, close within their reach, innumerable spots well worthy of consideration, and hitherto entirely unknown to the great mass of pleasure and scenery seeking travellers. ”

“ For the tourist there are excellent hotels and all the conveniences of a continental city, and amusements of sufficient variety to suit the most blase. For those who are merely stopping off for a day on the way to or from more distant ports it is hard to decide which of the many interesting places to visit. If it be his first visit, the mere city streets with the royal palms and other magnificent trees, the stores, the cosmopolitan crowds and other strange sights and sounds will be fascinating. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII The Coming of the Pleasure Seekers Pleasure seeking at Murray Bay.—A fisherman's experience in 1830.—New visitors.—Fishing in a mountain lake.—Camp life.—The Upper Murray.—Canoeing.—Running the rapids.—Walks and drives.—Golf.—A rainy day.—The habitant and his visitors.
In the Middle Ages mankind in pursuit of change of air and scene and of bodily and spiritual health went on pilgrimage to some famous shrine; in modern times dwellers in cities, in a similar pursuit, go in summer to some beautiful spot by sea, or lake, or mountain. ”

“ To appreciate that charm one must live for a while amidst the scenery, and learn to know its infinite diversity of aspect under the changing moods of the sky. The tourist who is conveyed through this scenery in the swift steamer on a grey, rainy day, naturally inveighs against the climate, and carries away with him only a recollection of dank fog through which the blurred bases of the nearer hills could now and then be seen. ”

“ Tired and travel-worn as we were, we could but congratulate ourselves, as the panorama now opened before us, on making acquaintance with a comparatively unexplored country, a green vision of towering hills and fresh bright valleys musical with the chime of running streams, and as yet primitive and unpervaded by the omnipresent tourist. ”

“ If he be wise, the visitor will not exhaust in a single tour of the sun the pleasures yet in store, but, after a fall, try a ravine or a mountain ascent, thus introducing that variety which is the spice of all our pleasures. ”

“ Occasionally, walking trips, with one or two companions, gave well-deserved vacations—trips from which the walkers returned tired and penniless, but inspired by the beauty of nature in the pleasant French countryside and thrilled with the stupendous grandeur of the Alpine scenery. ”

“ Not only are picnics and pleasure gatherings, within the groves, common to the humbler classes, but the wealthy travel great distances simply to enjoy the beauty of marine or mountain views. Scholars assemble at chosen seats, having fair landscapes before them, poets seek inspiration under waterfalls, and the bonzes, understanding the awe-compelling influence of the contemplation of nature’s grandeur, plant their monasteries and build their temples on lofty mountain heights. ”

“ If one always travelled as I did then, with a clear sky and charming climate on water as bright as the finest fountain, and were to meet everywhere with safe and pleasant encampings, where one might find all manner of game at little cost, breathing at one's ease a pure air, and enjoying the sight of the finest countries, one would be tempted to travel all one's life. ”

“ Yet no country could present the traveller with a more wonderful succession of ever-changing scenery, such a rich variety of landscape, ranging from verdant plain to mountain glacier, from the gay and picturesque to the sublime and terrible. ”

“ Many curious yarns of the uplands are believed only by the wandering tourist: inner lore of the mountain life is reserved for the home-sanctum. Where, in my wandering story, I feel myself competent to introduce the men of the land, the pictures are as faithful as I can make them. They have a store of stories, yet unprinted, in the wilder glens: stories of weird things, of splendid heroisms among the flocks and fells. ”

“ All visitors come with an object, well or ill defined—the student to look, the historian to gather dates and make records, while the restless spirit that roves everywhere is here in search of something new or wonderful for his eyes to rest on a brief period of time. At this place there is an unchanging serenity of sky, a clear and harmonious blending of two colors—white and blue—with a soft shading, and the line of distinction lightly drawn. Long level stretches of sandy country lie before us on the beach, covered by the canopy of heaven, and lighted by the luminary of day. ”

“ In that land of sunshine, with the cool breeze from the sea, the constant influx of European and American travelers, keeping one in touch with the world and with the simplicity of the surroundings, one can imagine a tranquilizing life and a happy coterie. ”

“ If fortunate enough to make this trip of eight or nine hundred miles up, and then down again, when the fog is not omnipotent and rain not incessant, the tourist will record a vision of earthly scenery grander than the most vivid imagination can devise, and the recollection of its glories will never fade from his delighted mind. ”

“ Then they are indispensable, for mists may suddenly come during the very finest day, and the tourist without a guide would run a chance of spending a night on a bleak mountain or being drowned in a lake or bog-hole. ”

“ It is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects, and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant horizon of the sea. ”

“ It has been remarked that, “there will come to the world-weary tourist visions of a beautiful land in the midst of the cool sea—a land fanned by healthful breezes, a land of green hills, purling brooks and fertile fields. ”

“ The terrestrial scenery—the tourist’s—is a prisoner compared with this. The tourist’s scenery moves indeed, but only like Wordsworth’s maiden, with earth’s diurnal course; it is made as fast as its own graves. ”

“ In our further wanderings we met sundry parties of visitors all led by guides who had the same theatrical trick as mine. You return by the same way to the locked door; but explorations are being made to discover a new route among objects sufficiently striking. Outside the door all is free, and you may roam and make discoveries at pleasure. There are steep gullies which lead into very wild places, where for want of bridges, galleries, and beaten paths, the labour and fatigue of exploration are sensibly multiplied. ”

“ They likewise appeal for merciful treatment of Alpine wild flowers.
We are all of us familiar with a "tourist resort" of some kind, so general is the habit of travel for curiosity's sake to scenes of beauty or of renown; and we are all of us aware, therefore, of the need there is for popular education to contend against the vulgar defacement of natural beauties and of historic monuments. ”

“ Also by walking, you can escape the loud-mouthed, bull-voiced tourist who bawls out his own shallow knowledge of erosion to the whole carriageful just at the moment you want to float away in fancy amid opal lights and upper heights where the Olympic and Hindoo and Norse gods took refuge when unbelief drove them from their old resorts. ”

“ For the benefit of those who are privileged to travel in Europe, and the number increases yearly, a pilgrimage is suggested which may easily be made to correspond with plans laid out on the basis of historical, artistic, and scenic points of interest. ”

“ Nevertheless, many of the imaginations that take form there are of real though temporary beauty, and a visitor who knew of nothing higher might wander contentedly enough there among forests and mountains, lovely lakes and pleasant flower-gardens, or might even construct such surroundings to suit his own fancies. ”

“ Sometimes a pilgrimage seemed nothing but an excuse for a lively and pleasant holiday, and the travellers often made themselves very merry on the road, with their jests and songs, and their flutes and fiddles and bagpipes. ”

“ Will some one go, and cross that strip of stormy sea, and learn the extent of the need, and show us how to meet it, in the quickest and best way? If so, that explorer will look back, all his life, on that winter trip with more satisfaction than on any autumn touring, from the peaks of the Alps to the depths of Mammoth caves. ”

“ The tourists who traverse the country in spring, immediately after the latter rains, when there is some vegetation in the barest places, and when their horses are up to the fetlocks in flowers, never forget the beauty of the landscape. ”

“ More and more to this network of lakes and streams and valleys and dark hills will come the home-seeker from the Old World of mountains and glens and of English fields. And always it will remain a country of delight to the holiday-seeker and the tourist. ”

“ It is all very wonderful and, to the traveller who makes the trip for the first time or the hundredth, the beauties of the panorama which unfolds at every white kilometre stone is so totally different from that which he has just passed that he wonders if he is not journeying on some sort of a magic carpet which simply floats in space. ”

“ It is near the main road; travellers, droves of cattle, the diligence, and bullock-carts pass in sight. Sometimes, at noon, I find a traveller resting in the shade, and if he is not sleeping we talk and he tells me the news of that great world my eyes have never seen. ”

“ It adds a new aspect of beauty occasionally to a wood, to mountains, to lake and ocean scenery. I remember a hale, cheerful pedestrian tourist whom we met frequently among the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and whom we remarked as being always the briskest of the company at the hotel table in the evening, and the merriest at breakfast. ”

“ Even when you pass through a land of scant scenic attractions, you may often, by searching, discover unexpected and secluded beauty-spots, the charms of which, in a small way, are not readily outrivalled; but they need finding, for many lie unannounced though near the roadside. ”

“ Pictures of natural scenery bring all countries before our eyes in such a way that by looking at them, while reading books of travel, we may know a great deal more about lands we have never seen, and may never be able to visit. ”

“ As we rowed past the shore, the people were seen running along all the roads leading to the town, so that by the time we reached the harbour, the crowd on both sides was immense: the trees, walls, and house tops, and in short every spot from which we could be seen, was literally covered with people, forming a sight as striking and animated as can well be conceived. ”

“ The Nineteenth Century is an Age of Travel. Every accessible point of interest and coigne of vantage on the universal globe is becoming, year by year, a scene of pilgrimage for increasing bands of tourists. ”

“ The romance of travel and the process of gathering legends and tales of local manners and customs is in no way spoiled because of modern means of travel. Many a hitherto unexploited locality, with as worthy a monumental shrine as many more celebrated, will now become accessible, perhaps even well known. ”

“ A walk on the mountains is delightful to the feelings and beneficial to the health. In selecting a sea-side resort, it is always, where it be practicable, to have mountain-air as well as the sea breeze. ”

“ Each has its own charm, its own lesson. Mykênê is the special goal of our pilgrimage, the object which—even putting modern discoveries apart—would of itself fully reward a journey from the Western world. ”

“ In countries like those we shall visit, the impressions of the first explorers are often more interesting and instructive than those of the latest tourist or naturalist, for such impressions have about them a freshness and an originality—often a quaintness and a simplicity—that are entirely absent from modern works of travel. ”

“ When a gorgeous sunset thus impressed the imagination of men on their travels, the age was sure to be one of exploration and wild adventure; and there could not but be a succession of adventurers till the rovers had at least sailed round the globe, and ascertained its great continents and main seas. ”

“ I was aware that our stayers-at-home had already something too much of churches, statues, and pictures, and yet that they cannot well imagine how much they make up the existence of tourists in the Old World. ”