Europe Books

THREE FAMOUS CITIES IN THE STREETS OF GENOA BY CHARLES DICKENS The great majority of the streets are as narrow as any thoroughfare can well be, where people (even Italian people) are supposed to live and walk about; being mere lanes, with here and there a kind of well, or breathing-place. The houses are immensely high, painted in all sorts of colors, and are in every stage and state of damage, dirt,... more...

CHAPTER I. We went on board the little iron Swedish propeller, Carl Johan, at Lübeck, on the morning of December 1, A.D. 1856, having previously taken our passage for Stockholm. What was our dismay, after climbing over hills of freight on deck, and creeping down a narrow companion-way, to find the cabin stowed full of bales of wool and barrels of butter. There was a little pantry adjoining it, with a... more...

PREFACE. During a stay of three years and a half in Germany and France, sometimes at work, sometimes tramping through the country, the Author collected a number of facts and stray notes, which he has endeavoured in these pages to present to the public in a readable shape. Of the twenty-eight chapters contained in the volume, sixteen originally appeared in “Household Words.”  They are entitled The... more...

CHAPTER I.Leave Beyrout.—Camp afloat.—Rhodes.—The shores of the Mediterranean suitable for the cultivation of the arts.—A Moslem of the new school.—American Presbyterian clergyman.—A Mexican senator.—A sermon for sailors.—Smyrna.—Buyukdéré.—Sir Stratford Canning.—Embark for Bulgaria.  I have been four years in the East, and feel that I have had quite enough of it for the... more...

CHAPTER I. ON THE WING. It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the swallows and butterflies of our social system are too apt to forsake their native woods and glens in the summer months, and to fly to 'the Continent' for recreation and change of scene; whilst poets tell us, with eloquent truth, that there is a music in the branches of England's trees, and a... more...

CHAPTER I. For months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of excursions—its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it,... more...

CHAPTER VII. ROSSBEHY, Feb. 21.—We are here on the eve of battle! An “eviction” is to be made to-morrow on the Glenbehy estate of Mr. Winn, an uncle of Lord Headley, so upon the invitation of Colonel Turner, who has come to see that all is done decently and in order, I left Ennis with him at 7.40 A.M. for Limerick; the “city of the Liberator” for “the city of the Broken Treaty.” There we... more...

PARIS TO ROCHEPOT. No one, I imagine, ever yet left an hotel in a central and bustling part of Paris, without feeling the faculty of observation strained to the utmost, and experiencing a whirl and jumble of recollections as little in unison with each other as the well known signs of that whimsical city, the Bœuf à-la-mode, (with his cachemire shawl and his ostrich feathers) and the Mort d'Henri... more...

INTRODUCTION A TRAVELER'S REFLECTIONS ON VERSAILLES From the low heights of Satory we get a complete view of the plains of Versailles--the woods, the town and the sumptuous chateau. The palace on its dais rules the scene. The village and ornamental environment have been constructed to augment its majesty. Even the soil has been "molded into new forms" at a monarch's caprice.... more...

The tolling of the deep-toned bourdon in the cathedral tower reverberates over the old town of Evreux as we pass along the cobbled streets. There is a yellow evening light overhead, and the painted stucco walls of the houses reflect the soft, glowing colour of the west. In the courtyard of the Hotel du Grand Cerf, too, every thing is bathed in this beautiful light and the double line of closely trimmed... more...