The peasants were very picturesque, and there is a great variety of costume both in men and women, some of course very shabby, and one wonders how their rags hold together. All these towns are wonderfully clean and about here all the people look clean, though they may be very ragged. The monks at the monastery were very interested in my work, and crowded on to the balcony above me, chattering like magpies. Sunday, I went to high Mass, and in the afternoon took a carriage to drive to San Giacomo, a disused monastery. Karabaich sat on the box with my sketching materials. Carriages are horribly expensive, at the rate of about two shillings a mile. Unfortunately we took it for granted that we could get on to the terrace, and allowed the carriage to go away with instructions to return in three hours. Alas! the doors were all locked, and though we found out where the custodian lived, he had gone to the town, so as it was not very far to walk to the Villa Adrian, Karabaich and I decided to look at it on our way back on foot, as we could not spend three hours doing nothing by the wayside. The Villa Adrian is a pension, a charming situation with several terraces down to the sea; all is quite new except some of the columns used in the pergolas. I made various enquiries about the pension, but was not pleased with the idea of always schinken (ham) for supper, and the rooms I saw did not impress me favourably either. In ten years’ time the garden will be lovely, no doubt, and in the summer when the leaves are out it must now be quite nice.
The next day we went to the much talked of Island of Lacroma, to which a small launch conveys you, and you pay the sum of two krones to go and return, and another krone to the solitary Dominican monk who inhabits the island. Lacroma used to belong to the Emperor Maximilian, and then to Prince Rudolf, but it was then considered so unlucky that the Emperor handed it over to the Dominicans. I asked the monk if he had seen any ghosts, at which he was much amused. Part of the Monastery can be wandered over, and the gardens would be charming if well planted with flowers. These gardens, of which there are several, are surrounded by high hedges, and box borders enough to delight any one. The rooms of the monastery are bare, but over each bedroom door is a rhyme in German, such as:—