Winter resort

“ The mild climate and uniform temperature of our city makes this place a favorite winter resort not only for invalids, but for those who desire to get away from the damp fogs and harsh winds of more northern climates. ”

“ Yet people grumble at the slightest thing amiss, and many grumble, too, because the hotels make an extra weekly charge for the enjoyment of these costly and elaborate “sports.” Indeed, the Swiss winter resorts now lay themselves out to prepare for their visitors as ambitiously and variously as any popular summer resort beside the sea. ”

“ It is a favourite winter resort, especially for visitors from England, and is situated in beautiful coast scenery. It has fine gardens, and its flowers and palms are especially famous: the former are largely exported, while the latter serve for the supply of palm branches for St Peter’s at Rome and other churches on Palm Sunday. ”

“ The low hills covered with pines and piñons, the romantic glens, and the wide views from the elevations about the hotel, make it an attractive place; and a great deal has been done, in the erection of bath-houses, ornamental gardening, and the grading of roads and walks, to make it a comfortable place. The latitude and the dryness of the atmosphere insure for the traveller from the North in our winter an agreeable reception, and the elevation makes the spot in the summer a desirable resort from Southern heat. It is a sanitarium as well as a pleasure resort. ”

“ But, wherever they go, these people are extremely useful. They constitute the great mass of the patrons of Southern winter resorts. Their numbers each year are rapidly augmenting, and the money they spend contributes materially to promote those increasing facilities of travel, hotel-accommodations, and town-improvements of which all share the advantage. ”

“ Before commencing our description of the Winter Resorts on the Mediterranean, with the best routes towards them, let it be clearly understood that not even in the very mildest of these stations is it safe for the invalid to venture out either in the early morning or after sunset without being well protected with warm clothing ”

“ Among the many desirable winter resorts which are readily accessible to the inhabitant of the eastern United States, there is perhaps none in which more natural beauty and historic interest are combined with an equable temperature than the Windward Islands. ”

“ The visitor goes to the river in the summer because of its coolness, and though the coolness is ofttimes delusive, being in appearance rather than reality, lying in the sight of the sparkles and the sound of the ripples, yet it is a fine make-believe. Such river-side hotels as cater for the season are content to lie dormant all the chill long winter, until, with the breath of early spring, the celandines raise their polished golden faces and the lords and ladies stud the hedgerows. ”

“ When feeling run down after a long spell of intense heat in the plains, a trip to this resort is most refreshing, for there it is always cool enough to wear light tweeds during the day and to sleep under a blanket at night. The mountain rambles are lovely, be it over the lofty peaks, through the trees and scrub in the valleys or along the bed of a stream, where frequent pools of running, crystal water afford good bathing or a little fishing for those addicted to the gentle art. ”

“ As a summer resort, it is fairly entitled to the name, being one of the most popular watering places in America. Its summer hotels are among the most commodious and attractive to be found anywhere, while private cottages and villas have sprung up on every available site, both on the shore, and on all the islands near. The facilities for fishing and boating, combined with the pure and invigorating atmosphere, and the beautiful scenery, attract to the place a tide of summer visitors, ever increasing in volume with each succeeding year. ”

“ A SUMMER resort is a place where dressmakers display their goods.
The proper ingredients of a Summer resort are a blond beach, a delicate, rheumatic hotel, about one thousand victims and plenty of hot air. Summer resorts were originally invented for giving people a rest. Now their principal purpose is to make everybody tired. ”

“ We are a comfort to ourselves—six of us, all told. Summer invites our little company into a breezy hotel, over in the shadow across the valley. Winter suggests a log cabin, an expansive fireplace, plenty of hickory, and as much sunshine as finds its way into our secluded hermitage. ”

“ A summer resort, however, is a summer resort the world over, and we found the historic city, which has gracefully fitted itself to the curve of its beautiful bay, crowded with idle people, elaborately dressed, who sat long at the noonday breakfast, and longer yet at the evening dinner, and then longest of all on the benches in the park, where bands clashed and fireworks flared, until the very stars began to blink for sleepiness. ”

“ The eastern coast, with its ragged outline of bays, headlands, indentations, islands, capes, and sand-spits, from Watch Hill, a favorite breezy resort, to Mount Desert, presents an almost continual chain of hotels and summer cottages. In fact, the same may be said of the whole Atlantic front from Mount Desert down to Cape May. It is to the traveler an amazing spectacle. The American people can no longer be reproached for not taking any summer recreation. The amount of money invested to meet the requirements of this vacation idleness is enormous. ”

“ THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUMMER RESORT Nothing is more remarkable in the history of American summering than the number of new resorts which are discovered and taken possession of by "the city people" every year, the rapid increase in the means of transportation both to the mountains and the sea, and the steady encroachments of the cottager on the boarder in all the more desirable resorts. The growth of the American watering-place, indeed, now seems to be as much regulated by law as the growth of asparagus or strawberries, and is almost as easy to foretell. ”

“ It is said that the tunnels, which must have rendered the railway a very costly undertaking, are giving way, and that the line may require to be abandoned. Be this as it may, to those who would enjoy the scenery, nothing could be more charming than to drive, in warm enough weather, by carriage along the Riviera di Levante, the scenes by road being considered to equal those of the Riviera di Ponente. Some towns, such as Nervi, in sheltered situations on the route, are used to some extent as winter resorts, although comfortable accommodation is difficult to procure. ”

“ In fact, the hills are almost perpendicular, and almost inaccessible to a nervous party, who in descending feels as if he must fall on the horse's tail, and ascending drop out of the cart behind. Yet to the young and active it is a wild, lovely summer resort, its unusual scenery presenting a most pleasurable and novel spectacle. ”

“ I like to think of Snow Lodge on the shore of the lake as a place where I lived when I was a boy.
"Oh, it's just fine there!" went on Mr. Carford. "In summer the grass is so green, and you can sit on the porch and look down at the lake. In the winter, when the lake is frozen over, there is skating and ice boating on it, and you can fish through the ice. And such hills as there are to coast down! and such valleys filled with snow! Sometimes it seems as if the whole house would be covered with the white flakes. ”

“ The city, indeed, was but thinly settled from Canal street northward to Union square; the Third avenue was a race-track, and all the present Fifth avenue hotel region was the resort of sportsmen. Brougham was received with kindness at the old Park, and subsequently he made a professional tour of other cities, but ultimately settled in New York. He was for a time connected with the stock company at Burton's theatre in Chambers street, and made many brilliant hits there, both as actor and manager. ”

“ It is a healthful resort, for all the winds that blow come from the sea, and its sea-views are striking, the rugged masses of Bradda Head, the mellow-coloring of the Calf, and the broad expanse of waters, dotted by scores of fishing-boats, making many scenes of artistic merit. While the want of trees makes the land-views harsh and cold, yet the glens and coves opening into the sea are the charms of Manx scenery, the high fuchsia-hedges surrounding many of the cottages giving bright coloring to the landscape when the flowers are in bloom. ”

“ Everyone, travellers, coachmen, carters, and hotel servants, were in winter costume, and stamping their feet on the ground against the cold. The deep grey of the hotel, which had been a Hospice for travellers, and the brown, clear waters of the motionless lakes beneath the snows and glaciers of the Cambrena, the Carale, the Sassal Masone, and, further away, the yoke of the Bernina, behind which the road descended suddenly to Italy—all had the cold and sad aspect of a winter landscape in the high mountains, without a tree or flower. ”

“ The hotels are reported full, and prices of lots have gone up with the usual nimbleness which characterizes embryo resorts. If peculiar, this new fashion may serve as a blessing to the idle and half sick people who are apt to patronize fashionable resorts by bringing into use many vigorous and healthful winter sports. ”

“ And the country itself has the corresponding advantage of being less liable to be turned into a commonplace summer resort by the whole monotonizing apparatus of hotels and boarding houses and conventional "sights". ”

“ Here were windows of restaurants or ball rooms or hotel promenades, all opened to the cool mountain air and all gaily lighted. An orchestra was to be heard crooning here and there. The one street was full of idlers, summer cottagers, hotel guests, the natives—promenading. Many electric lamps cast hard shadows provided by the trees. It was all so delightfully cool and fragrant. All these maidens were so bent on making catches, apparently, so earnest to attract attention. They were decked 41out in all the fineries and fripperies of the American summer resort scene. ”

“ Nevertheless, when the refinement and taste incident to the development of an older civilization shall have permeated the minds of the wealthy classes of citizens, this charming lake region will not only continue to be the favorite resort of tourists and artists, but will become, during the summer season, the abode of families whose abundant means enable them to enjoy the healthful climate, the gorgeous scenery, and the invigorating sports which lend an inexpressive charm to the sojourn on its shores. ”

“ Children exist in great numbers in Summer resorts, for some unknown reason these places being supposed to be good for the final recovery from measles, mumps, scarlet fever and other popular diseases. They romp in the corridors while you take your afternoon nap, and thoughtfully wake you up early enough in the morning to take the business man's train for town when you have foolishly planned to pound your adamantine mattress for another hour.
The only things that are not allowed at a Summer resort are dogs. ”

“ Fallen Leaf is an ideal spot for rowing, canoeing, and launch rides, and the hotel owns its own launch in which parties are regularly taken around the lake. During the summer season bathing is as delightful here as in any of the seaside resorts of the Atlantic and Pacific, and almost every one takes a plunge daily.
A camp-fire is built every night, where singing, storytelling, and open air amusements of an impromptu nature are indulged in to one's heart's content, though visitors are all expected to remember the rights of others and not keep too late hours. ”

“ In these places one’s appetite always craves the things that are not placed before you. Resort hotels are the most contrary places in the world. The name of the inn is taken from that of the geyser, the largest now in action in the Park basin, Old Faithful, so named because it gives an exhibition every hour. ”

“ The mountainous, embracing arms of the bay are exquisite in contour and color, and the beach is very fine. The hotel is perfectly comfortable—indeed, uncommonly attractive—and the extensive planting of trees, palms, and shrubs, and the cultivation of flowers, will change the place in a year or two into a scene of green and floral loveliness; in this region two years, such is the rapid growth, suffices to transform a desert into a park or garden. ”

“ The Water Gap is a popular summer resort, there being numerous hotels and boarding-houses in eligible locations all about it, and the romantic scenery has been opened up by roads and paths leading to all the points of view. ”

“ The Southern presidents, the senators, and statesmen, the rich planters, lived in cottages which still have an historic interest in their memory. But cottage life was never the exclusive affair that it is elsewhere; the society was one body, and the hotel was the centre.
Time has greatly changed the White Sulphur; doubtless in its physical aspect it never was so beautiful and attractive as it is today, but all the modern improvements have not destroyed the character of the resort, which possesses a great many of its primitive and old-time peculiarities. ”

“ In viewing the hotels in order to make a selection, it will be observed that some are more sheltered than others, and a certain preference may be given to those which seem to be the better protected from the north wind, which in winter months, especially during December and January, prevails and blows sometimes with a piercing cold during night and in the morning. ”

“ A summer resort is one of the thousand windows whence to watch the thousand aspects of life in the Atlantic States. Remember that between June and September it is the desire of all who can to get away from the big cities—not on account of wantonness, as people leave London—but because of actual heat. ”