Geneva

Geneva - Painted by J. Hardwicke Lewis & May Hardwicke Lewis.

Straddling the Rhone, where it issues from the bluest lake in the world, looking out upon green meadows and wooded hills, backed by the dark ridge of the Salve, with the great white mountain visible in the distance, it has the advantage of an incomparable site; and it is, from a town surveyors point of view, well built. It has wide thoroughfares, quays, and bridges; gorgeous public monuments and well-kept public gardens; handsome theatres and museums; long rows of palatial hotels; flourishing suburbs; two railway-stations, and a casino. But all this is merely the faadeall of it quite modern; hardly any of it more than half a century old. The real historical Geneva2the little of it that remainsis hidden away in the background, where not every tourist troubles to look for it. It is disappearing fast. Italian stonemasons are constantly engaged in driving lines through it. They have rebuilt, for instance, the old Corraterie, which is now the Regent Street of Geneva, famous for its confectioners and booksellers shops; they have destroyed, and are still destroying, other ancient slums, setting up white buildings of uniform ugliness in place of the picturesque but insanitary dwellings of the past. It is, no doubt, a very necessary reform, though one may think that it is being executed in too utilitarian a spirit. The old Geneva was malodorous, and its death-rate was high. They had more than one Great Plague there, and their Great Fires have always left some of the worst of their slums untouched. These could not be allowed to stand in an age which studies the science and practises the art of hygiene. Yet the traveller who wants to know what the old Geneva was really like must spend a morning or two rambling among them before they are pulled down. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 50738
Author: Gribble, Francis Henry
Release Date: Dec 21, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Lewis, J. Hardwicke (John Hardwicke), 1840-1927 , Lewis, May Hardwicke