After leaving Airolo the road descends rapidly for a few hundred
feet and then more slowly for four or five kilometres to Piotta.
Here the first signs of the Italian spirit appear in the wood
carving of some of the houses. It is with these houses that I
always consider myself as in Italy again. Then come Ronco on the
mountain side to the left, and Quinto; all the way the pastures are
thickly covered with cowslips, even finer than those that grow on
Salisbury Plain. A few kilometres farther on and sight is caught
of a beautiful green hill with a few natural terraces upon it and a
flat top - rising from amid pastures, and backed by higher hills as
green as itself. On the top of this hill there stands a white
church with an elegant Lombard campanile - the campanile left
unwhitewashed. The whole forms a lovely little bit of landscape
such as some old Venetian painter might have chosen as a background
for a Madonna.
This place is called Prato. After it is passed the road enters at
once upon the Monte Piottino gorge, which is better than the
Devil's Bridge, but not so much to my taste as the auriculas and
rhododendrons which grow upon the rocks that flank it. The peep,
however, at the hamlet of Vigera, caught through the opening of the
gorge, is very nice. Soon after crossing the second of the Monte
Piottino bridges the first chestnuts are reached, or rather were so
till a year ago, when they were all cut down to make room for some
construction in connection with the railway. A couple of
kilometres farther on and mulberries and occasional fig-trees begin
to appear. On this we find ourselves at Faido, the first place
upon the Italian side which can be called a town, but which after
all is hardly more than a village.
Faido is a picturesque old place. It has several houses dated the
middle of the sixteenth century; and there is one, formerly a
convent, close to the Hotel dell' Angelo, which must be still
older. There is a brewery where excellent beer is made, as good as
that of Chiavenna - and a monastery where a few monks still continue
to reside. The town is 2365 feet above the sea, and is never too
hot even in the height of summer. The Angelo is the principal
hotel of the town, and will be found thoroughly comfortable and in
all respects a desirable place to stay at. I have stayed there so
often, and consider the whole family of its proprietor so much
among the number of my friends, that I have no hesitation in
cordially recommending the house.
Other attractions I do not know that the actual town possesses, but
the neighbourhood is rich. Years ago, in travelling by the St.
Gothard road, I had noticed the many little villages perched high
up on the sides of the mountain, from one to two thousand feet
above the river, and had wondered what sort of places they would
be. I resolved, therefore, after a time to make a stay at Faido
and go up to all of them. I carried out my intention, and there is
not a village nor fraction of a village in the Val Leventina from
Airolo to Biasca which I have not inspected. I never tire of them,
and the only regret I feel concerning them is, that the greater
number are inaccessible except on foot, so that I do not see how I
shall be able to reach them if I live to be old. These are the
places of which I do find myself continually thinking when I am
away from them. I may add that the Val Leventina is much the same
as every other subalpine valley on the Italian side of the Alps
that I have yet seen.
I had no particular aversion to German Switzerland before I knew
the Italian side of the Alps. On the contrary, I was under the
impression that I liked German Switzerland almost as much as I
liked Italy itself, but now I can look at German Switzerland no
longer. As soon as I see the water going down Rhinewards I hurry
back to London. I was unwillingly compelled to take pleasure in
the first hour and a half of the descent from the top of the
Lukmanier towards Disentis, but this is only a ripping over of the
brimfulness of Italy on to the Swiss side.
The first place I tried from Faido was Mairengo - where there is the
oldest church in the valley - a church older even than the church of
St. Nicolao of Giornico. There is little of the original
structure, but the rare peculiarity remains that there are two high
altars side by side.
There is a fine half-covered timber porch to the church. These
porches are rare, the only others like it I know of being at Prato,
Rossura, and to some extent Cornone. In each of these cases the
arrangement is different, the only agreement being in the having an
outer sheltered place, from which the church is entered instead of
opening directly on to the churchyard. Mairengo is full of good
bits, and nestles among magnificent chestnut-trees. From hence I
went to Osco, about 3800 feet above the sea, and 1430 above Faido.
It was here I first came to understand the purpose of certain high
poles with cross bars to them which I had already seen elsewhere.
They are for drying the barley on; as soon as it is cut it is hung
up on the cross bars and secured in this way from the rain, but it
is obvious this can only be done when cultivation is on a small
scale.
