THE HOTEL.
One of the greatest sources of interest and pleasure for travellers who
visit Switzerland and the Alps for the first time, especially if they
are travellers from America, is the novelty of the arrangements and
usages of the hotels.
One reason why every thing is so different in a Swiss hotel from what we
witness in America is, that all the arrangements are made to accommodate
parties travelling for pleasure. Every thing is planned, therefore, with
a view of making the hotel as attractive and agreeable to the guests as
possible.
The Hotel de l'Ecu, where our party have now arrived, is very pleasantly
situated on the quay facing the lake. It stands near the further end of
the bridge, as seen in the engraving on page 58. It is the building
where you see the flag flying.
Indeed, all the principal hotels in Geneva are situated on the quay.
Quite a number of the large and handsome edifices which you see in the
engraving, on both sides the water, are hotels. The hotel keepers know
very well that most of the travellers that come to Switzerland come not
on business, but to see the lakes, and mountains, and other grand
scenery of their country. Accordingly, in almost every place, the
situation chosen for the hotels is the one which commands the prettiest
views.
Then, in arranging the interior of the house, they always place the
public apartments, such as the breakfast and dining rooms, and the
reading room, in the pleasantest part of it; and they have large windows
opening down to the floor, and pretty little tables in the recesses of
them, so that while you are eating your breakfast or reading the
newspapers you have only to raise your eyes and look out upon the most
charming prospects that the town affords.
Then, besides this, they have gardens, and summer houses, and raised
terraces, overlooking roads, or rivers, or beautiful valleys, and little
observatories, and many other such contrivances to add to the charms of
the hotel, and make the traveller's residence in it more agreeable.
They hope in this way to induce the traveller to prolong his stay at
their house. And it has the intended effect. Indeed, at almost every
hotel where a party of travellers arrive, in a new town, their first
feeling almost always is, that they shall wish to remain there a week.
What a pleasant place! they say to each other; and what a beautiful
room! Look at the mountains! Look at the torrent pouring through the
valley! What a pretty garden! And this terrace, where we may sit in the
evening, and have our tea, and watch the people across the valley, going
up and down the mountain paths. I should like to stay here all summer.
Then the next place where they stop may be on a lake; and there, when
they go to the window of their rooms, or of the breakfast room, they
look out and say,--
Ah! see what a beautiful view of the lake! How blue the water is! See
the sail boats and the row boats going to and fro. And down the lake, as
far as I can see, there is a steamer coming. I see the smoke. And
beyond, what a magnificent range of mountains, the tops all covered with
glaciers and snow!
When Rollo entered the hotel at Geneva, he found himself ushered first
into a large, open apartment, which occupied the whole centre of the
building, and extended up through all the stories, and was covered with
a glass roof above. There were galleries all around this apartment, in
the different stories. Doors from these galleries, on the back sides of
them, led to the various rooms, while on the front sides were railings,
where you could stand and look down to the floor below, and see the
travellers coming and going.
At one end of this hall was a winding staircase, with broad and easy
stone steps. This staircase ascended from story to story, and
communicated by proper landings with the galleries of the several
floors.
This hall, though it was thus very public in its character, was very
prettily arranged. The galleries which opened upon it on the different
stories were adorned with balconies, and the walls of it were hung with
maps and pictures of Alpine scenery, pretty engravings of hotels
standing in picturesque spots on the margins of lakes, or on the banks
of running streams, or hidden away in some shady glen, in the midst of
stupendous mountains. Then, besides these pictures, the hall was adorned
with statues, and vases of flowers; and there was a neat little table,
with writing materials and the visitor's book upon it, and various other
fixtures and contrivances to give the place an agreeable and home-like
air.
As Rollo came into the hall, accompanied by the porter, a clerk came out
to meet him from a little office on one side, and told him that his
father and mother were in their room; and he sent a messenger to show
Rollo and the porter the way to it.
Rollo accordingly followed the messenger and the porter up stairs, and
was ushered into a very pleasant room on the second story, looking out
upon the lake and the river. Rollo went immediately to the window. His
mother was sitting at the window when he entered the room.
"This is a pretty window, Rollo," said she; "come and look out.
"See how many bridges!" said she, when Rollo had come to her side.
"And how swift the water runs under them!" said Rollo.
"There are some boys fishing," said Mrs. Holiday.
"Yes," said Rollo; "I should think there would be plenty of trout in
such a river as this, it runs so swift and is so clear. This is just
such a place as I like. See that big water wheel, mother."
So saying, Rollo pointed to a large mill wheel which was slowly
revolving by the side of a building that projected out over the water,
on the island.
The island where Rollo saw the wheel was not the one seen in the
engraving on page 58. That is called the _islet_, and it stands _in the
lake_, entirely on the outer side of the first bridge. The _island_, on
the other hand, stands in the rapid current of the river, below the
second bridge, and is entirely covered, as has already been said, with
tall and very antique looking buildings. The current is so rapid along
the sides of this island, and along the adjacent shores, that it will
carry a mill any where wherever they set a wheel.
"After we have had breakfast," said Rollo, "I mean to go out and explore
all those bridges, and go about all over the island."
"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "that will be very pleasant. I should like
very much to go with you; and I will, if the sun does not come out too
warm."
By this time Mr. Holiday had paid and dismissed the porter; and he now
turned to Rollo, and asked him if he would like to go down and order
breakfast. Rollo said that he should like to go very much.
"Go down, then," said Mr. Holiday, "into the dining room, and choose a
table there, near a pleasant window, and order breakfast."
"What shall I order?" asked Rollo.
"Any thing you please," said Mr. Holiday; "you know what will make a
good breakfast."
So Rollo went out of the room, in order to go down stairs. He passed
all around the gallery of the story he was in, looking at the pictures
that were hung upon the walls as he went, and then descended the
staircase to the lower floor. Here he found doors opening into the
dining room, which extended along the whole front of the hotel towards
the lake. The room was large, and was very beautifully furnished. There
was a long table extending up and down the middle of it. On the back
side were sofas, between the doors. On the front side was a range of
windows looking out upon the river. The windows were large, and as the
walls of the hotel were very thick, a recess was formed for each, and
opposite each recess was a round table. These tables were all set for
breakfasts or dinners.
Some of these tables were occupied. Rollo chose the pleasantest of the
ones that were at liberty, and took his seat by the side of it.
Presently a very neatly-dressed and pleasant-looking young man came to
him, to ask what he would have. This was the waiter; and Rollo made
arrangements with him for a breakfast. He ordered fried trout, veal
cutlets, fried potatoes, an omelette, coffee, and bread and honey. His
father and mother, when they came to eat the breakfast, said they were
perfectly satisfied with it in every respect.