CORRESPONDENCE.
DOLCEACQUA.
AMONG writers of guide-books, it seems to be only Mr. Hare, in his " Cities of Northern and Central Italy," who gives Dolceacqua any just amount of praise. He calls it " perhaps the most beautiful place in the whole district." This is so true, that one wonders to find the place so little known as it is, even to people who have spent much time in the neighbourhood.
One beautiful morning in early March, the sun shining, a cool air blowing in the shade, we started from Ventimiglia to drive up the valley of the Nervia to Dolceacqua. At this time of the year, before the snow has melted, a small stream trickles through the wide grey stony bed of the river, between the hills and the cane-brakes, the terraces of lemons and vines and olives. As one ascends the valley, it becomes gradually more and more beautiful. The blue craggy moun- tains beyond are nearer, and behind them, yet seemingly very near too, comes the snow, dazzling, softly shadowed, cutting clear against the deep-blue sky. With this view in front, one drives out of a wide place of green and shady olive-orchards straight into the narrow, uneven, anciently paved street of Campo Rosso. If Dolceacqua, higher up the valley, reigns peacefully over the sweet waters of the Nervia, one cannot help fancying that she may owe something of her peace and beauty and strength to this quaintest and most suggestive of villages. The enemies of the Dorias may have had to fight their way here, to make a " red field " of the valley and its orchards, to struggle step by step through the street of tall houses, and the little piazza with its curious church, before they could make any approach to the stately castle at Dolce- acqua. Campo Rosso has all that look of fallen greatness which one constantly meets with in these small Italian towns. It is a grand little place, in spite of its present squalor. Some of the houses of its one crowded street are painted in fresco, especially one in the piazza, which has a loggia with pillars and arches and a painted ceiling. The lower windows are defended with crossed iron bars, as one sees them in the old Italian cities ; there are balconies of wrought-iron, and carvings in stone and marble; at the foot of the flight of steps which mount up to the church are two marble mermaids spouting fountains. Out- side the little town there is another church, its brown campanile standing up against the mountain background of purple and snow. The colouring of the place is wonderful,—in one corner an orange-tree in all its brightness leans up against a dark old wall and the deep shadow of an archway ; and there are great
geranium-bushes, and strange red and yellow pots, and flowers and green things everywhere.
But one cannot linger very long at Campo Rosso—Campe Rausse, as our Swiss driver chooses to call it—with Dolceacqua
in prospect. As we leave it behind, the valley itself becomes much more beautiful. At first there is a shady distance of green grass and silvery olives between us and the Nervia, on our right, while to the left the ground slopes up in steep terraces, olives always, and there are picturesque rocky places, and little wild brooks, mere threads of water now, hurrying down their stony beds to join the Nervia. On the low ground there is a curious old church and Campo Santo ; and two or three times by the side of the road we pass an old chapel or
shrine, with its dark-arched loggia. The olive-trees all along
here are very large, and more solemnly beautiful than ever : the old mossy stems add to that sacred look which dis- tinguishes the olive from every other tree. Further on the road runs on the very edge of the high river-bank, and looks almost too narrow, here and there, for carriages to pass; but it is not really so.
A turn in the valley brings us in sight of Dolceaoqua, standing at the foot of the mountains, on a bend of the Nervia, in a situation of almost ideal beauty. It is like a town in some old picture,—houses crowded picturesquely together on each side of the river ; a fine church-tower in the foreground ; and above, on the left bank, looking down in most majestic fashion over town and church and river, the roofs creeping up to its feet, the mountains standing round about, the valley stealing away to the sea, is the stately ruin
of the castle, its two square Romanesque towers almost perfect, and with the long line of buildings and windows and
ramparts, keeping all its old dignity. Dolceaoqua is the ancestral castle of the Dorias of Genoa, where they once reigned, we are told, " as sovereign Princes." The broad torrent-bed of the Nervia is here crossed by an old bridge of one arch, long and narrow, with green tufts growing between its rugged stones. On the left bank are the castle on its cliff, the dark streets winding up to it, the church ; and on the right bank, the road leads into the main street of the little town across a wide piazza, where men lie in the sunshine, and women talk, and children beg and play. Beyond the piazza, more picturesque old streets, arched here and there, lead on towards the other side of the valley.
As we came into the town, the church-bells began to ring, with that deep, beautiful chime one sometimes hears from these old towers. And then, as if Doloeacqua was bent on being something perfect in the way of a picture, suddenly almost the whole population came streaming out of the church, along the little road by the river, across the bridge on their way to the piazza and the rest of the town. On they came, men, women, and children, in a long, irregular procession, walking by twos, by threes and fours, the young girls with their dark heads and smiling faces, the mothers and grand- mothers with their coloured handkerchiefs. Old men, bent and shabby, busily talking to each other; young men, straight and tall, handsome and fierce most of them, with soft felt hats set sideways on their crisp black curls. Altogether, this hurrying yet orderly crowd, these chiming bells, this stream of varied colour crossing the old grey bridge, made up a real scene, a real effect, such as we English only see in some play or opera.
When the people had all passed over, we in our turn crossed the bridge, and climbed up to the castle through the Viadel Castello, one of the darkest, dirtiest, steepest, most entirely Italian and picturesque of streets, with deep, black archways, and vaulted places and wild-looking people, depths of shadow below, and up above dazzling sunlight catching old barred windows, and a strip of the bluest sky. This street brought us up to the lower ramparts of the castle, and we clambered up through the remains of old towers and walls, and wandered over the grand ruin. In some places the vaulting has fallen in, leaving great gaps in the grass-covered stones, so that one has to walk a little carefully ; but, on the whole, considering where it is, and how neglected, the castle is most interesting and wonderfully perfect. We lingered a long time in the
sunshine, among the old mossy stones. One hardly knew what was the most enchanting,—view of mountains, view of town and bridge and valley, fancied histories of those towers and walls, or mere existence, with that sweet air blowing, under the sun of Italy.
Our driver, who was a cheerful young Swiss, with the highest opinion of himself and his nation, gave us a very poor account of the people of Dolceacqua. They were miserably poor, he said, proud, and idle. They had no trade and no work ; in fact, how they lived at all seemed to be a mystery. They looked, however, contented enough as they walked over their bridge or lounged in their piazza, and perhaps a Swiss‘ hardly understands that Italians live on sunshine. Whatever the people may be, Dolceacqua in the afternoon light, with its background of purple and snowy mountains, and its own indescribable air of ancient stateliness, is, to say the least of it, a beautiful picture.
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