Two Pilgrims' Progress
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Citation
Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Two Pilgrims' Progress. 1887. cyclearchive.com, https://cyclearchive.com/books/two-pilgrims-progress-j-and-e-pennell-1887/
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Contents
- The Pennells recall the railway from London, the Channel crossing and the customs charges on their tricycle, which proved less trouble than their friends had predicted: eight shillings to Dover, nine francs freight and thirty-five francs duty at Chiasso. Friends in Florence warn them of cholera, malaria and escaped convicts, but on 16 October they ride out of the city anyway.
- They leave Florence by the Ponte Vecchio and the road to Pisa, where a blacksmith at the Porta San Frediano rewires the luggage-carrier, then ride past Signa, Lastra and Montelupo, meeting crowds of children and two nuns in a cart near Empoli.
- At the Albergo Maggiore the waiter keeps bringing a dish of birds they have not ordered, and the padrona and her small son watch the tricycle loaded the next morning, the boy asking whether such a velocipede might cost a hundred francs.
- On the second morning out of Empoli they cross the Ponte d'Elsa onto the road to Siena, through vineyards and open fields and past villas with roses over the wall, though a little boy will not give them one. At noon they reach Certaldo, where a trattoria crowd watches them drink vermouth taken by mistake for coffee and the padrona's brother, who keeps a Trattoria Boccaccio in Buenos Ayres, is discussed. They see Boccaccio's old town and the Palazzo Communale, then ride on towards Poggibonsi.
- At the Albergo dell'Aquila the padrona and waiter question them over dinner about the cholera, the bad roads to San Gimignano and Siena, and a saying about going up and down hill. J. talks Italian fluently, and that night men sing under the window.
- They leave Poggibonsi on a gradual climb and long coasts past vineyards at Staggia and Monteriggione, then walk the wooded pass where stone-breakers and two men with guns are met. A flock of sheep is driven under the tricycle on a fast descent, and at the gate of Siena an official makes them dismount, and a flower-seller follows them through the streets.
- They spend two days at a Siena pension among English and other boarders, including a retired major-general who had written a book. They walk the Duomo, the Lizza and the tanneries, hear street minstrels, and at a Sunday-evening marionette show in the Via Ricasoli leave after the second act, with other entertainments in the town noted.
- The major asks them to visit him in Rome and gives them a card of introduction to a Cortona acquaintance. They ride the long coast from Siena to Buonconvento, where a French-speaking strolling actor helps them at the inn and the padrone warns of the road to Monte Oliveto, and then take the new, rutted and chalky road that proves hard going in the dusk.
- The Abate of the Benedictine monastery takes them in after dark, and they stay several days, seeing Signorelli's and Sodoma's frescoes of the life of Saint Benedict, the herb pharmacy and garden, the cloisters, the wine-press and the view from the pigeon tower. They also walk up to the poor village of Chiusure and share supper with the monks, the dog Pirro and the cat Lupo.
- The Abate sends them off with two cakes and letters of introduction to the monks at San Pietro, Perugia. In rain and cold they push the tricycle over chalk hills past Monte Amiata, the crosses with carved black cocks, the cathedral at San Quirico, where a trattoria overcharges them, and Pienza, and reach Montepulciano at dusk.
- J. falls ill at the Albergo Marzocco, where the padrone's family and the pizzicheria across the street run the hotel. A young Montepulciano cyclist, Sandrino, who wears English clothes and a Speedwell Club cap, befriends them, takes them to the Madonna di San Biagio, and promises them the town's wine.
- Sandrino rides with them on the Sunday morning, performing for the crowds, past the Tuscany and Umbria boundary canal to Castiglione del Lago, where a trattoria charges him five francs for macaroni and wine. At his friends' villa the Signora, who says she lives in Rome, gives them wine and roses, and they climb through roses to Cortona, where the Albergo della Stella is found.
- In Cortona they search in vain for Luca Signorelli's house, led by boys, an old guide, a padre and a letter-writer, and dismiss the guide with a franc. Dark clouds over the valley persuade them to leave early.
- Elizabeth goes ahead by train from Cortona while J. rides the tricycle alone; at the station a telegraph operator's wife takes her in with coffee. At Passignano J. meets a stranded English tramp, gives him the Cortona card and a franc, and then rides up to Perugia by tying the tricycle behind the diligence.
- At the Albergo the padrone's black cat and talk of his cats amuse them. They see the piazza with Pisano's fountain, the Palazzo of the Baglioni and the Duomo, and the officers' caffe on the Corso, then visit San Pietro, now a boys' agricultural school, where a monk shows them the church.
- They leave Perugia past the statue of Julius II and the market, ride through a morning mist to the tomb of the Volumnii, and cross the Tiber by the narrow Ponte San Giovanni. At Santa Maria degli Angeli touts press cards on them, and a monk frowns at them from the road up to Assisi.
- The waiter at the Albergo recalls J. from an earlier visit and marks their route to Rome on the map. They visit the lower and upper churches of Saint Francis, with Giotto's frescoes and the brothers joking with two women, and a small boy shows them the town and the road to Foligno.
- They ride from Assisi past Spello and Foligno, where a woman in the road is rude, along the Via Flaminia through the Clitumnus valley and lunch at Spoleto. On the descent towards Terni the brake handle snaps, so they walk the seven-mile coast in the moonlight, meet silent, unhelpful people at the forks and reach Terni after the gate has been opened for them.
- At Terni the hotel's blacksmith mends the brake, and the padrone offers them a chromo of the waterfalls, which they do not have time to visit. They load the tricycle and set out next morning.
- They ride from Terni through Narni, where a man calls the country brutal, and across the Tiber valley past Otricoli and Borghetto to Civita Castellana. Crowds of holiday-makers follow them into the town, and the padrone finds them a room only after a search through three houses.
- The Albergo at Civita Castellana is a middling inn: the Pennells are given a garret reached through a room of four cots, and they hear snores and groans through the night. In the morning the cots are empty.
- They leave Civita Castellana with the townspeople following, then ride the Flaminian Way across the frosty Campagna past Soracte, the sheep and shepherds, and Castel Nuovo. A luggage-carrier breaks near the quarantine building and is set right again in the heat before the Ponte Molle.
- They ride over the Ponte Molle and through the Porta del Popolo, then along the Corso to the Piazza di Spagna, where two gendarmes call them to stop and a crowd gathers. They walk the tricycle to the hotel, and two months later they are fined ten francs for furious riding on the Corso.
- Joseph Pennell's article from Outing compares Hawthorne's vetturino journey from Rome to Florence, day by day through Civita Castellana, Terni, Foligno, Assisi and Perugia, with the tricycle's times on the same road. Its meals, horses and inns are set beside the tricycle, and the piece concludes that cycling is the better way to see Italy.