It would be the height of folly to bring good horses into these parts, seeing that no hay is to be got. After dinner we travelled over a long level track which was full of horrible gaping cracks made by the water in very strange fashion; a vile place to traverse in the winter, I can well imagine, but they are now repairing the road. After this we passed, about two miles to our left, the town of Arezzo, which stands in this same plain on a site which seemed somewhat higher than the surrounding country. We crossed the Ambra by a very high and handsome stone bridge, and supped at Levanella after a journey of ten miles. The inn stands a mile outside the village and has a great reputation, being reckoned--and with reason--to be the best in Tuscany, and indeed, judged by the Italian standard, it is one of the best anywhere. So excellent is the cheer that the neighbouring gentry--so we were told--often meet there, as at Le More’s[25] in Paris or at Guillot’s[26] at Amiens. They served us on pewter plates, a luxury very rare in these parts. The inn stands by itself, finely situated on level ground, out of which rises a spring of water. We left in the morning and travelled over the plain by a fine straight road, passing through four little walled towns, Montevarchi, S. Giovanni, Figline, and Ancisa,[27] and reached Pian della Fonte in time for dinner, after riding twelve miles. The inn here is indifferent: near by is a spring, a little above Ancisa in the Val d’Arno, which is celebrated by Petrarch; indeed, it is held by some that Ancisa was his birthplace. Certainly they claim this honour for a house some mile distant, of which now only a few paltry fragments remain: in any case they point out the place.[28] Here they were planting melons amongst others which had been planted some time before, in the expectation of gathering the same in August. This morning I felt my head heavy and my sight troubled, these being symptoms of those headaches with which I have been affected for the last ten years. This valley was formerly a morass, and Livy relates how Hannibal was forced to ride an elephant when he traversed it, and lost one of his eyes on account of the severity of the season:[29] it is assuredly a flat and low-lying country and greatly at the mercy of the floods of the Arno. I refused to eat at dinner, but I repented of this, for had I eaten I might have vomited, and I always find the speediest remedy thereby. Otherwise I am troubled by my head for a day or two, as was now the case. The road was crowded with country-folk taking provisions to Florence, where we arrived after crossing one of the four stone bridges over the Arno, having ridden twelve miles.