from St. Irvyne; or The Rosicrucian by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1810

"We will go to Genoa," said Megalena. "We will, my fair one. There, entirely devoted to each other, we will defy the darts of misery."

Megalena returned no answer, save a look of else inexpressible love.

It was now the middle of the day; neither Wolfstein nor Megalena had tasted food since the preceding night; and faint, from fatigue, Megalena scarce could move onwards. "Courage, my love," said Wolfstein; "yet a little way, and we shall arrive at a cottage, a sort of inn, where we may wait until the morrow, and hire mules to carry us to Placenza, whence we can easily proceed to the goal of our destination."

from Memoirs of Thomas Jones of Penkerrig by Thomas Jones, November 1776

Wednesday 13th – 

called at 3 and set off at 4 – a low country intersected with Rivers & Canals – along the banks of these we traveld –crossed the River Po at 11, and entered the City of Piacenza or Placentia – examined slightly at the Dogana or Customhouse, – After dinner went to see the 2 large equestrian Statues of Alexander Farnese & Ranuccio his Son situated in the great Square –the Cathedral &c & set off again about 2 – The fog cleared up – fine weather in the Afternoon – saw Mountains on our Right at a great distance which I suppose [those Mountains that we now saw at a great distance on our Right deleted] must have been the Appenines – above Bologna – fine Cornfields divided by rows of Mulberry trees & festoons of Vines – by 5 arrived at Fierenzuola a wretched Inn, where we heard of the Couriere & 2 other persons being robbed within half a mile of the place but 3 nights before –

from Cathedrals and Churches of Northern Italy by T. Francis Bumpus, 1907

But they are wearisome, these Lombard plains, spite of so much luxuriance and the nightingales, — who sing by day however, as not specified in poetry; they 'are up quite as early as the lark, and the green hedges are alive with their gurgling and changeful music till twilight. At night, the hedges and fields are perfectly illuminated by fireflies, whom I found really quite companionable during a subsequent solitary and tedious ride from Parma to Piacenza, when I might as well have tried the poetical impossibility of "reading by the glow-worm's light" as endeavour to see anything by the finger glass which dimly illuminated the long third-class railway carriage.