From Rome to Florence.
As we travelled north from Rome, the scenery changed. The hills grew into mountains & there wasn’t much cultivation. We saw hardly any flowers. But because we saw no flowers, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any colour _ No! If anything there was more colour than we should find in many flowers. The hills were brown &, as the sun went down, changed into many shades of blue. The grass was a brilliant green in some places, mixed with various other shades of green & also blue in the shadows. And the sky was bright blue dotted with little white clouds, &, over the hills it looked as if there would be a storm _ the clouds were black & grey outlined with silver & gold. In one place, to add to the scene,there was a small lake _ bright blue, nestled away in the valley.
In what flowers could one find more colour _ or even colours more soft & beautiful than those of these Italian hills & valleys?
As we passed on, we noticed lots of things different from England _ & even Rome. Children played about bare foot _ women carried their loads on their head & the only domestic animals we saw were pigs, sheep & cattle with very long horns_* These bulls were used always instead of horses. They drew the ploughs & carts & did everything that our horse would do. Sometimes a mule or ass was used instead of the bull _ or perhaps with a bull. I only saw one horse in the whole time I was on the journey which lasted 4 1/2 hours. We saw the peasants in their native costume. We passed little villages & towns on the hills.
At 5.45 we arrived in at the lovely station of Florence.
*See photo of the page for Peggy’s drawing of a bull with long horns.
Peggy1936 