United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On June 18, 1916, Alpine troops carried with the bayonet Cima di Sidoro, north of the Frenzela Valley. Fighting developed in the Boite sector, where the Italians had made some slight gains during the previous days, which the Austrians tried to dispute. Heavy Italian artillery bombarded the railway station at Toblach and the Landro road in the Rienz Valley.
From Landro we descended gradually into the beautiful valleys of the Tyrol, leaving the snow behind, tho' the white peaks of the mountains were continually in sight. At Bruneck, in an inn resplendent with neatness we had the first specimen of a German bed. It is narrow and short, and made so high at the head, by a number of huge square bolsters and pillows, that you rather sit than lie.
I met the Deacon and the Deaconess at the top, they having walked up from Landro. And so we crossed the boundary line together again, seven thousand feet above the sea, from Italy into Austria. There was no custom-house. The way down, by the Cat's Ladder, I travelled alone.
After the first summer we found the Italian Alps one of the most delectable of retreats, Cadore and Auronzo, with Cortina and Landro, all places full of picturesque and natural fascination. And now, as the strength wanes and we live more in memory than in act, the recollection of the summers passed in the land of Titian remains a gallery of the most delightful pictures.
The more one travels in the mountains, the more one learns to venerate this beneficent society, for the shelter-huts and guide-posts it has erected, and the paths it has made and marked distinctly with various colours. The Germans have a genius for thoroughness. To go astray under such auspices would be worse than inexcusable. Landro we found a very different place from Cortina.
I had some thoughts of staying thirteen days longer, to rival the count, but concluded to go on the next morning, over Monte Pian and the Cat's Ladder to Landro. The view from Monte Pian is far less extensive than that from Nuvolau; but it has the advantage of being very near the wild jumble of the Sexten Dolomites.
When we had fixt in our minds the fact that Landro and Bruneck lay out to the north, and Perarolo to the south; that Auronzo was to be found somewhere on the other side of the Tre Croci; and that to arrive at Caprile it was necessary to go over the Tre Sassi, we had gained something in the way of definite topography.
We all enjoyed it without serious drawback, the routine becoming a visit in early summer to Venice, then visits to the Venetian Tyrol, Cadore, Cortina, and Landro, and the return to Florence in the autumn.
I do not know just when we passed the Austrian border, but when we came to Lake Misurina we found ourselves in Italy again. My friends went on down the valley to Landro, but I in my weakness, having eaten of the trout of the lake for dinner, could not resist the temptation of staying over-night to catch one for breakfast. It was a pleasant failure.
Beside the highway were fields of young grain, prest to the ground with the snow; and in the meadows, ranunculuses of the size of roses, large yellow violets, and a thousand other Alpine flowers of the most brilliant hues, were peeping through their white covering. We stopt to breakfast at a place called Landro, a solitary inn, in the midst of this grand scenery, with a little chapel beside it.
Word Of The Day