. Travels in the Pyrenees : including Andorra and the coast from Barcelona to Carcassonne. E OF URGELL CHAPTER I URGELL AND ITS PRINCE-BISHOP The air of pride and nobility; which Urgell wears as oneis approaching^ her afar offis somewhat lessened byfamiliarity with her staleand tottering streets, butmost of all, perhaps, by thatsort of inconsequential andunfinished character whichseems peculiar to down into Urgellfrom Andorra of a summerevening, with the goldenglow on her high fortressesand smiling vale, one feelsthat one is entering a cityboth strong and beautiful,the seat for ni
. Travels in the Pyrenees : including Andorra and the coast from Barcelona to Carcassonne. E OF URGELL CHAPTER I URGELL AND ITS PRINCE-BISHOP The air of pride and nobility; which Urgell wears as oneis approaching^ her afar offis somewhat lessened byfamiliarity with her staleand tottering streets, butmost of all, perhaps, by thatsort of inconsequential andunfinished character whichseems peculiar to down into Urgellfrom Andorra of a summerevening, with the goldenglow on her high fortressesand smiling vale, one feelsthat one is entering a cityboth strong and beautiful,the seat for nine hundredyears of a Prince of theChurch, who still retains histemporal power ; and then in a moment one is at a standstillbefore the door of ones inn, in a street heavy with mud andoffal, tailing off at one end into nothing, and at the otherinto a straggling plaza, devoid of character and forlorn. If this were all there were of Seo dUrgell, it would be dis-appointing indeed ; but it has, in fact, much that is attractiveand definite, and even magnificent, to offer to the eye of the 298. A WAYSIDE CHURCH URGELL AND ITS PRINCE-BISHOP 299 critical traveller. The centre of its life is the Calle Mayor,which can have changed but little in the last two hundredyears, and in its location and origin must be as old as Urgellitself. It is flanked by tall houses of many stories, with ironbalconies, and painted walls, and enormous and massivearcades, under which the people walk, sheltering alike fromsun and rain. Here are shops and cafes and many mediaevaland antique sights, with branching vistas under dark archesdown old streets that might have been brought here fromDamascus or Stamboul. Here are corn-measures whosegranite slabs are black and polished with age, bearing datesof the mid-sixteenth century ; here are the wineskins of DonQuixote and the Spanish botta^ bright trappings for mules,pack-saddles piled high against the sombre walls, and acrippled beggar who goes up and down lying crou
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfranced, bookyear1913
