‘Today’, writes Cesare Sardi, ‘we shall perhaps have the Queen of Sweden, the King of Denmark, the Spanish Infanta, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Princess of Savoy…tomorrow the Duke of Mecklenburg, Count Paar, Prince Ottoboni, Admiral Arrison and the Duke of York.’ That was the Baths of the Val di Lima 200 years ago, warm springs which caught the fancy of fashionable invalids Europe-wide and became the centre of what Shelley called the ‘paradise of English exiles’. Among those resident here were Scott and Trollope, Ruskin and Mark Twain, Heine and Dumas père, Liszt and Paganini, Ouida and Mrs Hemans, the Shelleys, the Brownings and Byron. In one of Europe’s oldest casinos roulette was invented. The spa is still elegant and picturesque in its deep valley beside the foaming Lima, though a busy main road has ravaged the approaches. Pieve di Controne, 3 km north-east, has a curious redstone church with a puzzling façade.