April 30 Saturday – Sam’s notebook in Florence:

Saturday, Apl. 30 came from Rome to Florence yesterday. This is the Hotel Grande Bretagne & Arno — called the best in Florence. It is a vast confusion of halls & sleeping-holes; — a huge congeries of rats’ nests furnished with rubbish probably bought at pauper-auctions. The cook is the best in Florence, no doubt. He is first class; the rest of the hotel is fortieth class. / Later. Sir George Bowen says the cookery is bad now — May 10 [NB 31 TS 39A]. Note: the May 10 line added here for clarity; Sam lists Sir George F. Bowen’s London address [TS 42].

The notebook also lists Sam’s many objections to the Hotel Grande Bretagne:

“No matches /…goblets…/ extra blankets; / Stench of frying fat, & thick kitchen smoke coming up through floor & filling the room; / Bells seldom answered; / Mrs. Crane’s bed not changed after waiting 1 ½ hours. / Carpet-beating in the court & wagon-racket & barking dogs in early morning. / Everything on the cheapest & shabbiest scale, except the bills. / People always yelling downt the lift-well trying to attract attention. / Long vistas of crooked halls with elevations & depressions in them. / Everywhere the dirt of antiquity; everywhere gigantic fleas that threaten your life. / And the frescoes — oh, my God! Every detail of the house is exquisitely cheap & shabby. / In the parlors they peddle cheap copies of the old masters. / This hotel has nothing to recommend it but its reputation. No — its cook [NB 31 TS 39-40].