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especially during autunn and winter, and the Flo¬
rentines have a kind proverb: che di Siena non è buono
neanche il vento. The Tramontano is dry and pier¬
cing in winter; but in summer it often brings heavy
and rainy weather. I have observed that March
and February are the months in which it is most
severe, and it generally lasts for three days. It is
to be regretted that most Strangers pass through
here during the winter months, when the hills are
barren, bleak and desolate, when instead of reali¬
zing their poetical ideas of an Italian sky, they are
often presented with a cold foggy atmosphere, more
like what they have left at home than what they
expected to meet with on this side the Alps. — May,
June, September and October are, generally speaking,
the best months for enjoying Italy and its scenery,
more especially Florence, which from its position
in a sort of basin surrounded on all sides by lofty
mountains often covered with snow, renders the
Tramontana exceedingly trying to those in health
and very dangerous to invalids. — No wonder then
if a young inexperienced stranger fresh from the
north, who has got his ideas of Italy from the poe¬
tical effusions of Rogers, Lamartine or Goethe, or
perhaps even from the drop scenes of a London
theatre, arrives in Florence expecting to find the na¬
tives lolling under orange trees, singing to the ac¬
companiment of the amorous guitar, or gracefully
From Siena comes nothing good not even the wind.