It is a beautiful place reached by a funicular railway from a station about fifteen miles from Florence, and is where Milton wrote parts of Paradise Lost . The hotel was an old castle remodelled, and as we were almost the only guests and were attended by relays of most obsequious servants we managed to feel quite baronial. We spent our time being as lazy as we liked, or driving in the dense black forests of pine which cover the mountains and through vistas of which we could catch fascinating glimpses of the beautiful, town-dotted valley of the Arno some thousands of feet below.