Walking further on you come to the Cathedral, built in the seventeenth century. From here we pass on to the market place, which has a beautiful old Venetian door; there one day I sketched under difficulties, with a curious crowd and a tearing wind, which whirled the dust round and round over me and my easel, in a very aggravating manner.
Returning whence we came, we walked along to the clock tower, which we passed under, and immediately to our left was the Dominican Monastery, up several flights of steps.
My first day was spent in shopping and sight-seeing, the former consisted of buying some of the beautiful gold embroideries. I found what I think will make a beautiful dinner gown, the coat is embroidered nearly all over with the most exquisite gold embroidery; this coat is sleeveless, but belonging to it are sleeves which are also a mass of embroidery, these are cut perfectly straight, so impossible to wear, but I think they can be adapted by wearing them outside others and allowed to fall loose. I also bought a gold embroidered man’s waistcoat which makes a very smart trimming for a coat, or could be used for a winter gown. I found some old silver pins for hats, and a quaint jug which has a secret how to drink out of it without spilling the wine. It is very old, the wine comes up the handle, round the top of the jug to the lip, in which is a hole to drink, all the top of the jug is perforated, so it is necessary to know the secret to avoid spilling the wine. I added many other things to my collection and sent them on to the yacht to be brought home. These shops are too fascinating for words, there are so many things you can’t get at Liberty’s, wonderful to relate. There are quantities of old firearms for sale, old guns with inlaid stocks, pistols of all sizes and shapes, &c., &c. The place was full of visitors speaking in German tongue, but we saw no English, or even the ever present American. There are many old buildings worth visiting, and the streets are very quaint and picturesque, also very narrow, stretching up the hillsides; one wide long street down the centre of the town, where the principal shops are to be found.
Friday and Saturday mornings I spent in painting the cloisters of the Dominican Monastery, and I persuaded one of the young monks to pose for me, sitting near the well. In the afternoon Miss B. and I walked about the quaint old streets and saw many attractive bits for the brush, and then had coffee at a café and sat on the terrace, but the wind was cold, as we were not in the sun which is hot. Certainly the weather as to the intense cold had somewhat improved, and we found it unnecessary to wear so many coats and woolly things as before, which was a blessing.