We walked through some of the squares--Piazza Carignano, with the great palace Carignano which also looks grim and frowning, more like a prison than a stately princely residence. I wonder if there are any what we should call comfortable rooms in those gaunt old palaces. I have visions of barred windows, very small panes of glass, brick floors, frescoed ceilings black with age and smoke, and straight-backed, narrow carved wooden chairs. However a fine race of sturdy, fighting men were brought up within those old walls--perhaps Italy would not have been "unita" so soon if the pioneers of freedom had been accustomed to all the luxury and gaiety of the present generation.
We wandered back through more squares and saw numberless statues of Princes and Dukes of Savoy--almost all equestrian--the Princes in armour, and generally a drawn sword in their hand--one feels that they were a fighting race.
The hills all around the city are charming, beautifully green, with hundreds of villas (generally white) in all directions; some so high up one wonders how the inhabitants ever get up there. In the distance always the beautiful snow mountains. The town doesn't look either very Italian or very Southern. I suppose the Piedmontese are a type apart.
We had a table to ourselves in the dining-room, which was almost empty--evidently people dine earlier than we do--and yet it is tempting to stay out on a lovely summer evening. There were several officers in uniform at one table--evidently a sort of mess--about 10. They were rather noisy, making all sorts of jokes with the waiters, but they had nearly finished when we came in and soon departed with a great clatter of spurs and swords. We went for a few moments into the reading-room, which was also quite deserted--only two couples, an English clergyman and his wife both buried in their papers--and a German ménage discussing routes and guides and prices for some excursion they wanted to make.
I had kept on my hat as we thought we would go out, take a turn in the arcades and have a "granita." The padrone told us of a famous café where the "granita" was very good, also very good music. W. is becoming such a flâneur, and so imbued with the dolce far niente of this enchanting country that I am rather anxious about him. I think he will want to go every evening to the "Ambassadeurs" when we get back to Paris.