The Italian Riviera? Some other island paradise with white-sand beaches, aquamarine water, and palm trees? Here are a few excerpts:. But, for all my enthusiasm, I had enough common sense left to look quietly and seriously at the details that go to build up the picturesqueness. Perhaps it is the most surprising thing about Le Puy that it is no less wonderful in those details than as a whole. Once it had arranged itself on its own peak in just the right relation to the neighbouring peaks, to the streams running through the plain, to the hills on the horizon, it might have rested on its laurels and there would have been none to complain.
It has not been content, however; it lavishes its attractions broadcast. It has crowned the nearest peak with the little Romanesque chapel of St.
Michel, that repays the climb of the two hundred odd steps leading to it. It has buried a hero whose name stands for everything that was romantic in the past β Bertrand du Guesclin β in the old church of St. Laurent, that looks as if it might have been the background for everything medieval. It has filled itself with delightful old corners, with old turrets and towers, old convents and monasteries, old palaces almost Italian in stateliness.
It has given its women lace-making as an industry because few occupations are so pictorial. It collects in its markets the most astonishing array of whitecaps, though I regretted to find on my last visit that the deliciously absurd little black hat like a muffin the women used to wear over these caps was to be seen only on a few of the older generation.
It has provided enchanting views in every direction. And it has placed in the exact spot where the finest effect is assured a cathedral that is the most wonderful thing in this wonderful town. There is no anti-climax in the first view of the cathedral. It is as picturesque and unbelievable as the first view of the town.
