Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers
1857
In the winter of 1857, William James Miller accompanied his wife to the sun-drenched coast of the French Riviera, seeking relief from the grey English climate. What began as a journey for health became something more: a portrait of a world in transition. The railways had just made this journey possible for a new class of traveler, and Miller documents everything from the practical, which hotels welcome English guests, how to hire a carriage, where to find tolerable English food, to the evocative: the particular quality of winter light in Nice, the market stalls of Mentone, the rhythms of expatriate life among the colony of health-seekers. He reflects with quiet wonder on how travel itself has transformed, the old ways yielding to new speed and accessibility. This is neither guidebook nor dry chronicle, but something rarer: a cultivated traveler's genuine observations, written with the awareness that he is witnessing an ending and a beginning.
