DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0610
502 BOLSENA. [chap, xxvii.
similarity of its name, which is evidently derived from the
physical peculiarities of the site. Acquapendente appears
to be wholly of the middle ages—no traces of the Romans,
still less of the Etruscans, could I perceive on this spot.
At Ornano I chose the more direct route to Bolsena,
which I had soon cause to repent, for here, as usual, the
proverb was verified—
No liay atajo There is no short cut
Sin trabajo— Without many a rut.
The lanes through which it lay were so many beds of stiff
clay, saturated with the recent rains, so that the beasts
sank knee-deep at every step, and sometimes threatened to
become as permanently stationary as " my uncle Toby's
Hobby-horse." Thus—
" I long in miry ways was foiled
And sore discomfited, from slough to slough
Plunging, and half despairing to escape,"—
till I found terra-firma again at Le Grotte di San Lorenzo.
This is evidently an Etruscan site ; the surrounding ravines
contain sepulchral caves, though hardly in such numbers
as to entitle the village to the name, par excellence, of Le
Grotte. The red wine to which it gives its name is known
at Rome as among the best the State produces .2
A couple of miles further carried me to San Lorenzo
Nuovo, on the highway from Florence to Rome, where
" the great Volsinian mere " bursts upon the view. The
road thence to Bolsena is well known, but I may mention,
what cannot be learned from the guide-books, that the
picturesque and deserted village of San Lorenzo Vecchio,
2 If the Lago Mezzano be the Lacus N. H. XIV. 8. 5.), for the lake is hut
Statoniensis, this may he the very wine six or seven miles distant.
famed of old as the Statonian (Plin.
similarity of its name, which is evidently derived from the
physical peculiarities of the site. Acquapendente appears
to be wholly of the middle ages—no traces of the Romans,
still less of the Etruscans, could I perceive on this spot.
At Ornano I chose the more direct route to Bolsena,
which I had soon cause to repent, for here, as usual, the
proverb was verified—
No liay atajo There is no short cut
Sin trabajo— Without many a rut.
The lanes through which it lay were so many beds of stiff
clay, saturated with the recent rains, so that the beasts
sank knee-deep at every step, and sometimes threatened to
become as permanently stationary as " my uncle Toby's
Hobby-horse." Thus—
" I long in miry ways was foiled
And sore discomfited, from slough to slough
Plunging, and half despairing to escape,"—
till I found terra-firma again at Le Grotte di San Lorenzo.
This is evidently an Etruscan site ; the surrounding ravines
contain sepulchral caves, though hardly in such numbers
as to entitle the village to the name, par excellence, of Le
Grotte. The red wine to which it gives its name is known
at Rome as among the best the State produces .2
A couple of miles further carried me to San Lorenzo
Nuovo, on the highway from Florence to Rome, where
" the great Volsinian mere " bursts upon the view. The
road thence to Bolsena is well known, but I may mention,
what cannot be learned from the guide-books, that the
picturesque and deserted village of San Lorenzo Vecchio,
2 If the Lago Mezzano be the Lacus N. H. XIV. 8. 5.), for the lake is hut
Statoniensis, this may he the very wine six or seven miles distant.
famed of old as the Statonian (Plin.