PINZOLO AND CAMPIGLIO.
For August be your dwelling thirty towers
Within an Alpine valley mountainous,
Where never the sea wind may vex your house,
But clear life, separate, like a star, be yours.
So alway drawing homeward ye shall tread,
Your valley parted by a rivulet,
Which day and night shall flow sedate and smooth,
There all through noon ye may possess the shade.
FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO, A.D. 1260;
_Rossetti's Translation_.
PINZOLO--THE CHURCHES OF VAL RENDENA--HISTORY AND LEGENDS--VAL
NAMBINO--THE BRENTA GROUP--LA MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO--HOSPICE AND
PENSION.
Pinzolo is conspicuous amongst the villages which cluster round the
head of Val Rendena by its tall campanile of Adamello granite, a pretty
feature of the landscape, but, as I shall afterwards show, an evil sign
of the times. Its houses, gathered along two stone-paved streets and
round a little open space--the piazza--stand close against the eastern
hillside at the point where the mountain-ranges, bending towards one
another and almost joining, enclose in their semicircular folds the
lower valley. Great torrents rush out of two clefts in the hills, the
openings of Val Nambino and Val di Genova, and but for human industry
would devastate the low ground on their banks. But they are held fast
in fetters of their own contriving. The huge granite boulders, which
in former floods they have borne down from the heart of the Presanella
or the Adamello, have been turned to account for the building of
massive dykes through which so much water only is allowed to pass as
will suffice to irrigate the plain and turn its alluvial soil into the
richest of water-meadows.
The beauty of the situation does not, like that of Grindelwald or
Chamonix, depend on mountain sublimity. On one side some shreds of
snow and granite belonging to the Presanella come into view. On the
other the southern crest of the Brenta group lies couched like a huge
gold-red Egyptian sphinx on the green back of a lower hill. But these
are mere glimpses of the upper world, valuable and suggestive glimpses
it is true, but not sufficient to decide the character of the whole
landscape. The hills which encircle the head of Val Rendena rise
in steep but nowhere perpendicular banks, swathed in chestnut woods
about their base, lying open higher up in sloping meadows fringed with
mountain ash, birch and pine. The valley floor, a smooth, brilliantly
green carpet, gives an impression of wealth and softness rendered more
welcome by the knowledge of the rugged grandeur so close at hand.
It would be hard to find a more delightful spot in which to idle
away a sunny day than the hillside immediately behind Pinzolo. It is
only needful to climb a few hundred yards among the chestnut-boles to
find platforms covered with a soft carpet of moss, ferns and delicate
southern flowers. Here under the shade of dancing leaves, fanned by
soft breezes and lulled by the cool tinkle of falling water and the
murmur of innumerable living things which fills an Italian noon, the
restless traveller may for once enjoy unmixed with other thoughts
the sympathetic delight of coexistence with a world seemingly for the
moment wholly given up to enjoyment.
In another mood he may climb higher and higher through the forest,
gaining at each step new glimpses of the bright fields and villages of
Val Rendena, and watching the icy horns of the Adamello group as they
shoot out one by one against the sky. Then entering a hidden upland
glen he will reach a gap where, in the opposite direction, the dolomite
towers soar stark and red over the green slopes. Hence he may descend
into Val Agola, and so to Campiglio, or, turning to the right, wander
along shady forest paths to the ridge of the Pra Fiori. But left of
the depression, and cut off by it from the other hills, rises a grassy
down which must give one of the most perfect views of the surrounding
ranges, raking as it does Val di Genova, Val Rendena, and Val Nambino.
There is a châlet within five minutes of the meadow-top, but any lady
who likes the walk may, so far as I know, boast herself afterwards of
having made 'the first ascent by travellers' of the Dos di Sabione.
If the rain-clouds hang low on the hills and the woods are too wet
for loitering in, the old churches of the valley may give employment.
The mother-chapel near the mouth of Val di Borzago has been already
referred to. The large modern church in the village, with its campanile
built at the cost of the noble forests of Val di Genova, has no
particular interest.[53] But five hundred yards north of Pinzolo stands
San Vigilio, a plain building consisting of a nave and small chancel,
with a belfry, probably of older date, at the western end. The southern
face is decorated with a frescoed Dance of Death, dated 1539, a work
of some spirit, and retaining traces of rich colouring. We may stroll
further across the valley to the romantically situated chapel of San
Stefano perched high among the woods on a granite bluff above the mouth
of Val di Genova. The outside is covered with representations of the
life of the saint, and another Triumph of Death, dated 1519; within is
a very curious fresco of Charlemagne--I beg Mr. Freeman's pardon, the
great Karl--engaged, in company with a Pope, in baptising the heathen.
Close by, a long and most interesting inscription tells the history of
the campaign, in the course of which the great emperor penetrated this
remote region. The following is a very curtailed summary of the events
there recorded.[54]
Lupus, Lord of Bergamo, was a pagan, and Charles strove with him to
convert him. But Lupus took a certain Sandro and many others and cut
off their heads; whereupon there appeared six burning torches, no one
holding them; and by God's grace the bells rang without earthly aid.
Seeing this miracle, Lupus with all his people was converted to the
Catholic faith, and joined Charles. The host, numbering 4,000 spears,
marched up Val Camonica, slaying heretics, such as Lord Hercules and
King Comerus, destroying castles, and building churches. Then they
crossed a mountain where there was a great fight between the Christians
and pagans, at a place since known as 'Mortarolus.'
[Illustration: SAN STEFANO AND THE CIMA DI NAFDISIO.
J. Gilbert delt.]
From the 'Mons Toni' (the Tonale) the army descended to Plezau
(Pelizzano), where it made a great slaughter of the heathen, and so
reached Val Rendena by the route of the Ginevrie Pass. 'And they came
to the church of San Stefano and baptised a very great people. And the
said Charles made an end of converting all the Jews and pagans at the
church of San Stefano, and there he left a book in which were contained
all the things he had done throughout the world.'
The chroniclers tell us little of all these matters.[55] The Alpine
Passes of the Middle Ages is a chapter of history which, so far as I
know, has not yet been satisfactorily written. Much material for it
doubtless exists, although not in a form very easy of collection. It
would be a work full of interest to trace how in succeeding centuries
first one then another route rose into importance; and the present
moment, when the Alps are for all practical and commercial purposes
on the brink of annihilation, when mountain roads are about to yield
to burrows, seems peculiarly well suited for a review of the whole
subject.
Higher in the hills between Val di Genova and Val di Borzago, beside
a little lake, lies the chapel of San Giuliano, a tempting object for
an excursion, including a visit to the latter valley, and perhaps an
ascent of the Corno Alto, one of the high points seen from Val Nambino
against the Lares snows. The saint, according to local legend, seems to
have been a somewhat testy old hermit. Having been refused milk by some
shepherds, he at once turned them and their flocks into boulders, which
may still be seen. I suspect San Giuliano was no saint at all, but some
mountain spirit known to earlier times, who reappeared under this new
disguise with the malicious intention of discrediting the new religion.
I can only indicate briefly the varied attractions of Pinzolo and
its immediate neighbourhood, leaving to each visitor the pleasure
of fresh discovery. But on looking back I find that I have left out
what ought to have been the most prominent object in my picture. Most
English travellers are disposed to agree with Dr. Johnson that the most
beautiful landscape in the world would be improved by a good inn in the
foreground. It is too late to put Signor Bonapace's in this position,
but I will do my best to repair the slight by describing it at once,
and with some minuteness.
The house remains up to the present time a good specimen of the country
inn of Southern Tyrol. It is kept by well-to-do people, who drive an
excellent trade with their own country-folk, and until the last year
or two looked with some astonishment on the few pleasure-travellers
whom each summer brought them. An arched doorway opens out of the
paved street into a sort of barn, whence a steep stone staircase leads
up into a dark, low-roofed hall or lobby, crowded with benches and
tables. Out of it open two still gloomier inner chambers. In one a
faint glimmer of bright copper, a sound of hissing, and a bustling of
Marthas, reveal the kitchen; in the other, at the foot of an enormous
family bed, leaning over a table, sits the master of the house, one eye
intent on accounts, the other keeping a quiet watch over what goes on
around. At his order a handmaiden will leave her labours in the kitchen
and conduct you up another steep flight of stairs, and into a large
dormitory containing five beds, three tables, and two washing-basins,
which used to be considered to fulfil every possible requirement for
night accommodation. Now, however, several smaller apartments have been
furnished for guests, and a cheerful room in the next house, over the
grocer's shop, is also put at the service of English prejudice. Meals
cooked in the fashion of the country, but very plentiful, are served in
a little room with a bed in the corner, which opens out of the lobby.
Both are generally filled of an evening with a crowd of customers of
the peasant-farmer class, perfectly well conducted, but too talkative
and fond of smoking to be altogether agreeable companions. Yet dark
and dingy and crowded though it is, there is romance about this typical
Italian mountain inn. Its discomforts are soon forgotten, and it lives
in our memories by many cheerful sights and sounds: the splash of the
fountain at the corner under the walnut-tree, where the women in their
bright-coloured handkerchiefs wash their linen, and call out cheerily
to the barefooted little Pietros and Marias playing in the sunshine;
the sudden bustle and tinkle of the goats returning from the mountain
as they troop off in little companies to their separate homes; the
noise of the bowls and the laughter of the players, kept up till there
is no longer light to pursue the game: last of all, as if in solemn
contrast to the exuberant life of the day, the melancholy voice of the
watchman ringing out through the silent night.
The larger of the two streams which meet at Pinzolo issues from Val
di Genova; the second flows out of a gap in the hills continuing the
line of depression of Val Rendena. Scarcely two miles higher, beyond
the neighbouring village of Caresolo, this torrent again divides. On
the left Val Nambrone leads up towards the flanks of the Presanella. A
steep ascent is necessary to gain the highest stretch of Val Nambino, a
wide, sunny vale, studded with cottages and surrounded by green slopes
and forests.
The old cart-track, lately converted into a good carriage-road, skirts
continuously the western hillside, leaving the stream far below in a
narrow bed. Behind us the snows of the Carè Alto and its neighbours
gradually rise into sight above a lower ridge graced with singularly
symmetrical summits.
But our attention is soon riveted on the new mountain range which rises
beyond the valley. High amongst the clouds soar its red towers and
pinnacles; the bold ridges which support them sweep down upon us in
majestic curves. Three glens, green with beech copses, push up boldly
into the heart of the mountain. The one opposite is Val di Brenta,
rising towards its Bocca, the gap on the north of the most stupendous
castle; the furthest, the Vallesinella, leads by another strange
gateway to Molveno, the nearest is Val Agola, also with passes for
mountaineers or paths for ramblers.
[Illustration: VAL DI BRENTA.
From the Road to Campiglio.
Fulmini di Brenta. Bocca di Brenta. Cima Tosa.
J. Gilbert delt.]
We have already seen from a distance, or skirted the sides of, the
Brenta group. From the crests of the Adamello chain or from the depths
of Val di Genova a mysterious range utterly unlike anything in the
central Alps[56] has been frequently before our eyes. At Pinzolo, or on
the Pra Fiori, we have had glimpses of strange red peaks. But we seem
now to have come for the first time into their immediate presence.
The spectator standing on the western slopes of Val Nambino sees
high above everything else against the eastern sky two huge square
fortresses built up of horizontal courses of masonry. The ground-colour
of their walls is a yellowish grey, streaked with red and black,
and broken here and there by lines of shining white, where a steep
glacier-stair scales the precipice. The massiveness of these blocks
adds by contrast to the effect of the surrounding pinnacles. Before the
traveller's eyes rise towers, horns, cupolas, columns, spires, crowded
together in endless variety. Here he fancies must be the workshop of
Nature, and these are her store of models. Or he is reminded of some
architectural drawing, a collection of the great buildings of the
world, or the spires of Sir Christopher Wren.
These peaks are the advance-guard of the Tyrolese dolomites, boldly
thrown across the valley of the Adige, as if to challenge on their own
ground the snowy ranks of the Orteler and Adamello. They are separated
from the granite by no wide depression such as divides the Venetian
Alps and the Tauern, but only by a single valley. The boulder which
rolls from the flanks of the Presanella will scarcely halt before it
rests on dolomitic soil.
The Eastern Alps could scarcely have put forward a nobler champion
than the range before us. Primiero and Auronzo may perhaps equal the
marvellous skyline; but they offer nothing to rival the symmetry of
the whole mass of the Brenta as it rises above Val Nambino. Consider
the lower stories of the huge edifice. The slope is not monotonous in
uniformity, yet the platforms which break it are too narrow to diminish
by foreshortening the apparent height of the summits. From our feet
rise powerful spurs, below dark with pines, above bare and white; their
form is simple and severe, but every shifting light brings out fresh
details in the fretwork which time has carved deeply into their sides.
Like the flying buttresses of some vast cathedral they lead the eye up
to the straight perpendicular lines of the crowning towers.
When we come to study the range more generally, what incomparable
variety of beauty! On the west lies a green, open Alpine valley. The
Lago di Molveno reflects in its blue mirror the eastern crags. The
southern slopes are a rich tangle of vines and chestnuts; the beeches
push up and dispute with the pines the inner glens; the cyclamens and
gentians gird with successive belts of brightness the mountain form.
The traveller, when he penetrates this fantastic chain, finds himself
at first in narrow glens watered by clear streams, now smooth-flowing
over lawns of the softest turf, now dancing through beechwoods,
now plunging deep into some miniature ravine hung with mosses and
bright-berried ashes. He forgets, in the charm of what is near at hand,
what he came to see. Then suddenly through the tree-tops an incredible
yellow flame, set for ever between the green and blue, recalls the
presence of the dolomites, and urges him to further exertion. He climbs
a steep barrier, and the pinnacles range themselves as portions of
a vast amphitheatre of rock. He advances a few hundred yards further
along the level and the scene is changed. One solitary tower overclimbs
the clouds and mixes with the sky. A second ascent brings another
shift. Rocks, grey, gold, red, brown and black, cluster round his
bewildered eyes, and he begins to doubt whether the scene is a solid
reality or some Alastor-inspired Vision of Solitude.
Then, after wandering all the morning between red rocks and over two or
three hours of ice, he may find himself in the evening amongst figs,
olives and lemon-groves. For the Brenta group is planted not in the
midst of a mountain maze, but on the edge of the deepest cleft in the
Alps. From the white crown of the highest peak to Alle Sarche is a
descent of 10,500 feet.
* * * * *
It is a disappointment to find that, for the moment, we must turn our
backs on all this beauty, and that our resting-place lies out of sight
of it, a mile further on.
The builders of the hospice of 'La Madonna di Campiglio' were more
anxious for safety in winter than for a fair prospect in summer. They
naturally preferred a meadow secure from avalanches, yet sufficiently
protected from the north by low banks, to the steeper and more broken
hillsides of the lower Val Nambino. After turning a corner beyond which
the wooded spurs of Monte Spinale cut off the view of the Brenta chain,
the road crosses the stream and enters a broad, smooth hay-field,
surrounded by slopes the summits of which lie too far back to give
dignity to the landscape. In the centre of this plain, far away from
any village, stands the hospice and pilgrimage church of Campiglio.
The existence of so large a building on a route now so little
frequented must strike everyone as curious and unexpected. But in fact
these remote valleys were once the highways of traffic. Not only, as
has been shown in an earlier chapter, did emperors lead their hosts
through the recesses of the Lombard Alps, but the merchandise of Venice
also sought these roundabout paths.
In olden times the gorge of the Adige was narrow and perilous for
an invader, crowded with feudal castles, each claiming its toll
from commerce. Princes and merchants seem to have frequently turned
westwards from Botzen across the Tonale, or southwards through Pinzolo
and Val Buona to Brescia. Then Campiglio was built, it is said by the
Templars, to lodge the frequent passers-by and break the long stage
between the inhabited valleys.
Similar hospices are found elsewhere in the Eastern Alps: at San
Martino, Paneveggio, and Auf der Plecken. But Campiglio is the largest
establishment of its kind. The buildings are ranged in the form of a
quadrangle, of which the hospice occupies three sides. Long galleries
lead from wing to wing and give access to the rooms, which all face
outwards and are cheerful and well lighted. The church, at the building
of which, according to local legend, angels assisted, occupies part of
the fourth side of the quadrangle. It contains a fresco, not without
merit, of the early part of the sixteenth century.
After some centuries traffic turned into other channels, and the monks
who had hitherto fulfilled the duties of hospitality departed, leaving
their place scantily filled by a peasant farmer, who kept one or two
rooms ready for strangers. On my first visit the old hospice was in
this phase of its existence. The fare was rough but good, and the milk,
cream, and butter delicious. The cows indeed seemed the mistresses of
the place, and all the other living creatures their attendants. For
their accommodation a new and spacious stable had been lately raised.
The front was decorated with carving; the interior formed a sort of
hall of columns, each column an unsmoothed fir-trunk. Down the centre
ran a spacious passage, on either side of which thirty-five cows were
ranged before their mangers.
Lately, however, the herd has been disturbed in its sole possession,
and Campiglio has started on a new path to fame. The farmer who owns
all the surrounding alps and woods, and whose wealth is locally looked
on as boundless, conceived an idea. Why should not the big house
be made use of? Rabbi, across the Val di Sole, was crowded with the
fashion of the Trentino. Campiglio also should become a 'Stabilimento
Alpino,' a 'Kurort' for Brescia and Botzen. He secured a coadjutor in
the owner of a large inn at Arco, a young man with international views
and desirous for more than a local success. In a Florence newspaper,
addressed to tourists of all nations, appeared, in the spring of 1874,
a large announcement of the opening of a 'magnifico stabilimento,' with
polyglot attendance, a resident physician, and the usual advantages.
Last year I explored this new magnificence. Externally it displayed
itself in some additions and wooden galleries over the courtyard.
Indoors many of the rooms had been prepared for occupation and a
large bare salle-à-manger added. There was also a comfortable general
sitting-room.
The splendour was still growing, for, as new guests arrived, a
carpenter employed downstairs ran up fresh furniture for their use,
some of the hundred bedrooms of the advertisement being still in a
state of more than conventual simplicity. The 'service bon et exact'
was represented by three Italian youths, pale, untidy and swift-footed,
who fled with the greatest alacrity from any guest whose face gave
tokens of an approaching want. Their goodwill, however, was on the
whole so much in excess of their capacities that it was impossible
to treat them seriously.[57] For instance, the head waiter, having
been charged by an Englishman to wake him and get ready an early
breakfast, was found in the morning fast asleep in a chair in which
he had sat up all night with a fond intention of carrying out his
instructions. It must in fairness be added that, if an early start was
not better understood and provided for, it was chiefly the fault of
the guests. With a few notable exceptions they were the least active
and enterprising company I ever set eyes on. With exquisite scenes
on every side of them within a short half-hour's distance, they were
content to spend their days in the sleepy hollow, or, if they took a
walk at all, strolled along the new road for three hundred yards, that
is, nearly halfway to the corner of revelation where the great view
bursts so splendidly into sight. Guide-books not having yet catalogued
'excursions from Campiglio,' it never seemed to enter their minds that
there could be any; and they were content to loiter away their time
among the glories of nature, having eyes and seeing nothing. If you
asked your neighbour at the dinner-table which of the glens of the
dolomites he had rambled into? he did not know there were any; if he
had seen the Lares snow-fields flush at sunrise or swim in sunset haze?
if he had stood on any crest or 'tower of observance' high enough to
overlook the Trentino to where the peaks of Primiero and Cadore raise
their ramparts against a golden sky?--he could only reply with a stare
of dull incredulity.
But, once hardened to the contemplation of such misery in one's
fellow-creatures, the state of the pension was not without its
advantages. The gregarious British tourist was happily conspicuous by
his absence; Germans were rare, and the few who passed did not care
to linger where they were not allowed to smoke with their guides in a
public room during other people's meals.
Consequently there were none of those absurd but most disagreeable
differences over windows which arise whenever the haters of fresh air
gather in any number. For even with the greatest respect for a nation
and the strongest desire to fraternise with its members, it is hardly
possible to get on well with people whose favourite atmosphere is to
you as insupportable as Mars might be to the inhabitants of this earth.
Extended travel must surely in time enable the North German mind to
realise the existence, at least in others, of a horror of stuffiness.
I am sure that when this fact is once grasped many worthy men will be
saved from behaviour which if it did not arise from want of imagination
would be intolerable bearishness.
But if we speak freely of the shortcomings of others we must not forget
our own excesses. The appropriation, no matter for what purpose, of
the public room of an inn by a section of the guests is a thoroughly
selfish and unwarrantable proceeding. What should we think in Scotland
if an American congregation were to take possession of the inn
coffee-room every Sunday, and use it constantly on weekday evenings for
practising hymns? Yet this is what on the Continent tourists of other
nations have to submit to in all spots which have been discovered by
either of our missionary societies. No one can reasonably object to
English churches being built wherever the sick are sent, or even, as a
luxury and by those who can afford it, at such places as Chamonix and
Zermatt. But it is difficult to believe that our countrymen are so much
creatures of habit that they cannot sometimes gratify their religious
emotion in the Greek clearness of the mountain-top or under the Gothic
shade of the neighbouring grove without intruding their devotions on
their fellow-travellers of other creeds or countries.
At Campiglio, for the present at least, the Italian coming down
on Sunday morning runs no risk of finding himself in the midst of
a transformation scene; the tables chased, the chairs ranged in
regimental ranks, his acquaintance in the grey suit of last night,
black-coated and roped round his neck with a white tie, pinning up
notices of hymns on the backs of 'menus,' and a much-embarrassed host
endeavouring to explain to the non-British guests the cause of the
general turmoil.
I must not dismiss the Stabilimento without a short mention of its
two most important inmates at the time of my visit. The first was
a young member of the local 'Societa Alpina,' whose adventures and
heroism had made him a public character. Accompanied by the gardener
and carpenter of the establishment, he had ventured to attack one of
the limestone peaks east of Val Selva. The way proved longer and more
arduous than had been expected, and night was falling as the party
descended a narrow crest of the mountain. Suddenly they were made to
pause by a terrific roar, and a few moments afterwards beheld, several
hundred feet below, and on a spot they must pass, what they believed
to be a large bear. The animal instead of walking off, as bears in
every-day life are accustomed to do, behaved exactly like a bear in
a story, or one of the animals which are the terror and delight of
the modern nursery. Erect on his hind legs, he flashed fury from his
eyes, opening his red mouth and snapping his jaws at intervals with
ferocious significance. 'Si può immaginare nostra paura,' said the
poor mountaineer. He and his companions prudently decided not to risk
a nearer encounter with a monster who knew his part so perfectly. They
stopped exactly where they were, and spent the night, haunted by deep
breathings and strange sounds, which they attributed generally to wild
animals, and more particularly to the bear, camozzi and contrabandisti.
The gardener who was a sharer in this adventure was, it appeared,
permanently attached to the establishment. This gentleman spent many
hours daily under the shelter of a vast felt wideawake, superintending
the laying out of the surrounding grounds, which consisted of a flat
square plot of meadow, perhaps thirty yards by twenty. But genius shows
itself in small things as well as great. The variety of shape of which
flower-beds are capable is endless; and with an underling provided
with long strips of turf to mark the edges, our artist studied at
leisure the most pleasing forms and combinations. The ground idea, one
showing no slight originality, was taken from a plate of veal cutlets
such as sometimes appeared at the midday meal. One cutlet a day was
as much, however, as the creative mind could accomplish without risk
of repetition; and this finished, the broad hat and its owner would
after a few minutes of thankful contemplation retreat for rest to a
neighbouring bench.
To sum up. Those who look for the charm of Campiglio in any view from
the windows will be cruelly disappointed. Its attraction lies in the
wonderful freshness and purity of the air, which rivals that of the
Engadine, and in the variety and beauty of the excursions within reach.
For ladies, botanists, and quiet strollers there is an unusual
abundance of easy walks, through shady glades full of rare and
beautiful flowers and ferns, by the side of clear dove-coloured brooks
glancing down over the limestone shelves, or up to secluded tarns and
grassy ridges whence the great horns and teeth glow orange against the
sky, or the Adamello snows glitter in the sunlight. Moreover, active
climbers have within easy reach a variety of glacier-work which all but
two or three of the greatest Swiss centres might envy, and rock scenery
such as Switzerland can nowhere rival.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] In Southern Tyrol campaniles are generally built by the
communes which have realised their wealth by cutting down
their forests, and the great sawmills at the mouth of Val di
Genova have undoubtedly had a large share in the execution of
this pious work. It is most distressing to see from year to
year how greed of immediate gain is leading the peasantry to
treat their mountains like convicts. Ample as the locks were,
they have been terribly thinned even in the last few years.
Val di Genova, within my recollection, has lost much of
its ancient and primeval wealth of verdure. The comparative
barrenness of its lower portion was painful on my last visit.
Good forest-laws may retrieve in the future the waste of the
last few years, but no traveller in this century will ever
see the valley clothed in the same full-folded mantle which,
eleven years ago, made our long walk from the Presanella to
Val Rendena one continuous delight.
[54] See Appendix D, where this inscription is given in full,
together with a description of the frescoes of San Vigilio.
[55] In the _Vita Caroli_ of Eginhardt is the following
tantalising passage: 'Italiam intranti quam difficilis Alpium
transitus fuerit quantoque Francorum labore invia montium
juga et _eminentes in cælum scopuli_ atque _asperæ cautes_
superatæ sint hoc loco describerem, nisi,' &c. The words
italicised apply singularly well to dolomitic landscapes,
but it was probably the St. Bernard and Mt. Cenis that the
chronicler had in mind.
[56] There are several dolomitic groups in Swiss territory.
One of the most considerable has already been described
(Ch. V.). Another is the cluster of bold peaks standing
between the Julier and Albula roads, of which the highest
summits are the Piz d'Aela, Tinzenhorn, and Piz St. Michel.
There is also dolomite between the Via Mala and the Savien
Thal, and in other parts of Switzerland. But none of these
masses--probably owing to some slight difference in the
composition of their crags--show the peculiar characteristics
of the rock in a sufficiently marked manner to attract
attention except on close approach.
[57] It would be unfair to dwell on the shortcomings of an
inn but just opened in a remote and, until the completion of
the new road, somewhat inaccessible situation, without adding
that great improvements were promised for this year (1875).
As these pages are passing through the press, I learn from
a new advertisement in _Le Touriste_, that the owner of the
house and land has taken the management of the hotel into his
own hands. I shall let him speak for himself.
'CAMPIGLIO. Tyrol. Le grandiose Établissement Alpin de
Campiglio, dans une position enchanteresse, à plus de 1600
mètres de hauteur, est honoré par le concours de nombreux
visiteurs, qui trouvent la santé et le repos dans son
air des plus salubres, ses laitages exquis, ses bains et
boissons ferrugineuses, ses douches, ses cures de lait et
petit lait, son service médical, ses eaux ferrugineuses,
apportées journellement de Pejo et Rabbi aux prix de 6
soldi autrichiens la bouteille de 2 livres, dans sa cuisine
choisie, dans son service bien organisé, dans les nombreux
amusements qu'offre l'endroit, dans les belles excursions aux
environs, dans les conforts intérieurs de l'établissement,
ses vastes salons avec pianos, les cavalcades, etc. etc.
'Le Propriétaire soussigné en ayant pris lui-même la
direction, pour éviter tout inconvénient, offre des pensions
à 5 frs. pour ceux qui y feront un séjour d'au moins 10
jours, comprenant le logement, déjeuner, dîner et souper, vin
à part, et sans aucune obligation pour le service.
'Il n'a pas regardé à la dépense pour mettre l'établissement
en communication avec la route postale, et une nouvelle route
carrossable le réunit à Pinzolo. Il tient aussi des voitures
de Campiglio à Pinzolo à des prix très modérés, et, en
recevant l'avis à temps, aussi de Campiglio à Trento et Riva,
et vice-versa, au prix de 50 frs. pour 5 personnes, pour ceux
qui prennent la pension.
'L'établissement s'ouvre le 1 Juin prochain.
'_Le Propriétaire_, G. BATTISTA RIGHI.
'Campiglio, 1 Mars 1875.'