Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

That great continental knee that curves southward to thrust the leg of Europe into the boot of Italy also encloses its gulf with a twinkling garter of mountains. These are not always clearly to be seen, but once glimpsed are provocative beyond most vistas, even if the traveller is an experienced one. In winter and other doubtful seasons the gulf hides itself in rain, or mists which sweep down like the swirling skirts of cosmic dancers from the slopes of the Maritime Alps.

But in early summer before a sirocco blows it is quite another thing. Then the sky over the gulf is turquoise, and the Mediterranean Homeric blue. By night the planets appear to lower themselves and burn nearer to the earth, and the stars to march higher as they do in tropic latitudes. Dawn comes from Italy, and if you are so lucky or so wise as to be on deck at that early hour, you need have no fear of an anticlimax in your destination, for before you lies Genoa rising unbelievable, white marble terrace above white marble; red tiles, churches, towers, villas, orchards, and castles ringed in by a noble amphitheatre of hills.