I have seen
Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the pass called
the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I think the view from
the terrace in front of this house is finer. Immediately at the back
of the house we have the hills--mountains they would be called in any
other part of Europe--of which Monte Generoso, now covered with snow,
though with a hotel on the top, is the most conspicuous. The country
more immediately around us is a district of rolling hills, partly
vineyard, but in a larger degree wooded, and here and there
diversified by the well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our
outlook, it will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am
speaking of, now known under the style and title of the "Excelsior
Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the Morosini family at
Venice. The name will not be new to any who have visited Venice; for
the traveler, even if his tastes did not lead him to take any heed of
such matters, will not have been allowed by the _ciceroni_ to overlook
the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand old church of the
beheaded Saint John, _San Giovanni decollata,_ or "San Zuan Degola,"
as the soft-lisping Venetians call it.
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