It Lies Nearly 4000 Feet Above The Sea, So That
Even In Summer The Air Is Cool.
There are plenty of delightful
walks - to Piora, for example, up the Val Canaria, and to Bedretto.
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.
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