Foreign Parts
Through the Land Tyrol

Foreign Parts.

Through the Land Tyrol.

Maderno, Lago di Garda, Italy,
27th April, 1900.

We departed from the friendly city of Munich, the metropolis of the German Kingdom of Bavaria, on 22nd March, 1900, and have now been away from these homely winter quarters for a month. We passed over the German frontier into Tyrol, which belongs to the Austrian Empire, and is celebrated for the picturesqueness of its mountain peaks, walls and gorges, covered with eternal ice and snow, and also for the defiant struggle for their nationality of the Tyrolese peasantry (under the guidance of Andrew Hofer) against the invading legions of Napoleon Buonaparte in the year 1809, when these brave struggles were so much admired and sung about by all the world, especially the English nation, which in those days used to stand with their sympathy on the side of the oppressed.

The northern side of these gigantic Alpen mountains, whose ice peaks reach above the clouds, is in this early spring season not fit to take pleasant walks in; it would be too much like going to Klondyke, or trying to face a Canadian or Siberian blizzard for us Australians. So we wrapped ourselves in our warm cloaks and rugs and took seats in the very comfortable steam-heated railway cars, and on a rapid journey through these icy regions, while blowing and brushing the ice flowers from the frozen windows, peeped into the majestic world of steep to heaven-reaching pinnacles of rocks and ice, into steep precipices, and over far-stretching sunny valleys, full of the busy life of a jolly, laborious, pious and frugal population.

We passed the heights of Brenner Pass, which is the dividing mountain chain between the northern and southern slopes of this part of the Alps. From this chain the waters of the Dux, Ziller, Inn rivers, etc., emerge and run northwards into the Isar river, near Munich. The Isar flows with many other tributaries, mostly all fed by the slowly-melting snow glaziers of the Alps, into the mighty Danube stream through the wide plains of Hungary. The Danube breaks at Orshowa through the “Iron Gate,” the barrier of the Transsylvanian Alps, and flows into the Black Sea; while all the waters from south of this Brenner Pass flow through Southern Tyrol and Northern Italy into the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas. It is through the—in hottest summer—slow-melting glazier snow in the enormous heights of the Alps that the rivers of Germany, Austria, and Italy have such a fortunate regularity of water-flow; and the lands are held in such a state of humidity that the crops never suffer by irregular seasons, as they do in other parts of the globe, especially Australia and Africa.

Our train passed through many gorges and tunnels, and reached at last Innsbruck, the principal town of Tyrol. There are here so many monumental spots, reminding us of the bloody past and epochs of fanaticism, greed, oppression and hard struggles through which old Europe has passed, that we desist in pointing them out to our readers in the (at present) peaceful Australia; but we hope to God that such times—which seem to us to be the earlier or later fate of all lands and nations to go through in their development—may be far, far distant from the present generation and the present “golden century” in our land of milk and honey—Australia.

Near the town of Innsbruck we looked at the Matins Wand, a huge, thousands of feet high steep mountain wall, where Kaiser Maximilian I. of Germany, in the year of 1412, was for several days hanging and clinging to a small protruding stone crag, he having there fallen while hunting the chamois with the crossbow—before he was saved by the determined efforts of his devoted hardy mountain people. We saw the “Goldenroofed House,” a building out of the proud time of richness in the days of the “Lavante trade,” when Venice was the centre of the world’s trade. We made a pleasant foot-tour in the surrounding districts of this big ice-mountain bound town, looked at castles of feudal lords, and at extensive nun and monks convents, the castles mostly in ruins and desolate, the latter in full bloom and rich fetter. We also saw the farmers’ houses, clapped on scarcely accessible mountain sides, and their inhabitants jubilantly and contentedly hauling up, by cleverly constructed wire arrangements, manure over gorges and precipices from the roads underneath to their tiny patches of garden and field land. Far away along the road from Innsbruck to Italy stretches the Jsel-Berg, where the defender of Tyrol, Andrew Hofer, won a great victory with his determined mountaineers against a large French invading army.

Innsbruck is a very pretty place, but, as it is situated many thousand feet high, the weather is very rough. In hot summer these high spots in the Alpen Mountains are eagerly visited by city people, and all sorts of strangers; but we found it, in that early part of the year, not advisable to stay long, but took train as far as the town of Brixen (South Tyrol). There we left our luggage, loaded ourselves with our “ruck-sacks,” and, stick in hand, made off on foot again for three days as far as Bezen.

Fom this town, where we stayed nine days, we made many an interesting trip about, walking, and saw the old, very remarkable castle of Runkelstein. This is perhaps the best preserved castle built in the very early time of 1209. The walls are of solid, thick granite, blocks erected, and within—in the proud old “Ritter Saal”—are venerable old frescoes (wall paintings), with scenes out of oldest Teuton times: Tristan and Polde, King Arthur’s round table, the Niebelungen, etc. Also there is a wonderful old collection of cross-bows, daggers, swords, arrows and bolts, helmets, etc. Later on we saw the Sigmond-crown Burgh, and thence marched along the Mendel mountain chain to Eppan, Kaltern, and saw many old edifices, selections of articles, illustrating the days gone by in those parts. The air is hereabouts wonderfully light, pure and refreshing, and the sights are, as the character of scenery is constantly and often surprisingly changing, highly interesting. The country people here are all Teutonic—although the language is as different from high-German as the English language is. There are many Italian and Slavonian labourers occupied hereabouts in road works, quarries, etc.; but they do not stay long, and, after earning some money, go back to their own countries: south and eastwards. The old streets in Bozen and elsewhere in southern Tyrol show already the Italian style: narrow streets and arches, overbuilt footpaths; but the new streets in Bozen, especially on the right (southern) side of the Padi River, is situated a splendid “Kurort:—gries,” which has modern, broad streets, with nice gardens in front. Here, especially on the zig-zag paths of a sunny mountain side, are a great number of gorgeously and stylishly built country villas, hotels, mansions and castles, inhabited by the wealthy of the world. From the sunny slope, where grand public gardens are laid out, wherein palms, cycadees, dracenas and other sub-tropical plants through summer and winter thrive well in the mild air of this, against north winds by the huge mountains, well protected spot. The visitor has a splendid view of the wide valley and town of Bozen far to the distant glazier and eternal icefields of the “Rosengarten,” so called, as it, in the glare of the rising sun, flanked by the mass of mighty obelisk-like rock-pillars, the celebrated “Dolomites,” looks exactly like a miraculous, fairylike field of red and white roses.

These parts, and also the landscape where the elegant spaa-town of Meran is situated, are certainly unsurpassed in beauty, and could be considered a paradise if not permanently visited by thousands of highly, elegantly dressed, but very uncomfortable and wretched looking sick people from all parts of the globe, who come here to be cured. They—especially the ladies—dress so grand and look so unhomely, that we really felt greatly relieved when we could sit down amongst the good simple country folks, listen to their funny homely talk and songs, and study their peculiar and contented ways, which nevertheless to describe would, in these columns, lead too far, but which gave us always great pleasure.

Everywhere in Southern Bavaria and Tyrol the country people are true Roman Catholics, but not at all fanatic. Near Klansen (one of our travelling stations north of Bozen) is situated, on a very precipitous rock, an immense nun convent, the inhabitants of which are said to be very retired and almost self-incarcerating. However this is, they certainly enjoy the grandest outlook over a wide, fertile country, and will, like the monks in a neighbouring convent (very poor and grim looking in comparison to the proud and grand looking nun convent) not suffer any want of worldly nourishment and comfort. We have seen no nuns, but several times monks. The latter were very simply clad in a brown blanket-like garment (reminding us of the wandering Australian black gins). They show no collars or shirt sleeves, have a rope around their waists, and their feet naked; but the waists are generally of a very comfortable size, and their faces graceful and fat, which we can scarcely say of the hardy, frugal, but jolly peasantry in these parts.

From our march from Klansea towards Bozen, the wide valley widened more and more till we arrived at the town of Atzwang, too early to stay overnight; but we took a good substantial dinner and enjoyed—thirsty as we in this splendid warm weather had become—a good drink of the everywhere in South Tyrol splendid and cheap country wine. On the walls of this ancient arched “Gast-Zimmer,” which surely has seen the days of brave Andrew Hofer, were written many funny pieces of poetry, of which we copy one here in the original Tyrolese, adding a translation—

Another of these funny verses demands:

It was always along the rapidly though broken, immensely high cliffs, flowing, thundering Isach River where our path was winding, and then later on along the bank of the Etsch (Italian Adige) River, which flows southwards, and at last we reached this town of Bozen, which, after a stay of nine days, we left by train to proceed southwards. The landscape from Bozen to Trient (Ital. Trento) is, although very hilly, of a friendly character; but thence we went in a desperate zigzag through a wild barren granite labyrinth till we were landed on the shores of the surprisingly beautiful Garda Lake (Ital. Lago di Garda), and arrived via Arco, a town close to stupendous steep hill cliffs, at the town of Riva, where we took quarters at the hotel “Zum Haasen.”

The wonderful rich plains (which stretch out in the south of the Garda Lake, and which we on foot toured via Garda, Peschiera, Sirmione, Descencans, etc., etc., often visited, and which are by the eternal shield of the snow-clad Alps in the north sheltered and watered so bountifully) have, since the earliest beginning of the history of Europe, been the battlefields of nations. In 119, before Christ, the first Cymbrians and Teutons crossed the eternal ice-fields of the Alps here from the far, then quite unknown, north into the Roman Empire. They were giant, big-bearded people, with red hair and blue eyes (as the ancient Roman historians describe them). They were clad in hairy leather-hides. They used their shields to slide down the snow-clad slopes, as was beheld with terror by the refined Romans, who never before saw such sights. Since these Cymbrians and Teutons first invaded the Roman Empire on these fields, these nations have constantly been sometimes in ferocious battle, and sometimes in peaceable commercial and intellectual exchange of goods of earthly want, as well as of spiritual and artistic ideas, in lively communication, about which—however interesting—we can in these columns not make further explanations, but will only advise our readers to search about these points, concerning these magnificent lands south of the Lake Garda, for information in our splendid public Australian metropolitan libraries.

But, oh, how charmingly beautiful are these Longobardian North-Italian landscapes now to us two wanderers—the plains laid open to us on our journeys around the fields and gardens in the south of the Lago di Garda! In this early spring time, when in all the lands of Europe, north of the Alps, the snow covers the furrows of the farm lands and the pine forests on the hills, we gathered on our wanderings 120 different kinds of wild flowers; the larks are jubilant in the air above the high green clover and grain-fields, and the nightingale sings in the olive and laurel bushes in the many gardens. In the lustily braying of the many donkeys, the crowing and cackling of fowls, and bleating and meckering of sheep and goats, sounds the jubilant call of the cuckoo to our hearts’ delight.

The grape vines are in full green, and even the late oak and beech trees have large leaves. In the fields and gardens, and even on steep hill slopes on terraces, are plantations of olive trees, peach, apricots, figs, and grape vines. The olive trees are generally planted about 15 or 20 feet apart, and, as they throw very little shade, rows of vines on trellises are planted underneath in rows 7 to 10 feet apart, and pretty close together, within the rows are often maize and other kinds of grain products, or even strips of clover or grass are cultivated between the rows of vine-trellises.

Along the steep ranges on the western side of the north part of the lake, often close to the roads, are built many strange, very large (up to 70 feet high and up to 1000 feet long) hot houses for the cultivation of oranges and lemons (of the Lisbon kind); also of the large kind of the citrus family, called in Australia citrons, and which are here called cedrons, of which a beverage is here concocted, called “Aqua di cedro,” and the thick skin is used for the manufacture of “candied lemon peel.” These peculiar and very expensive hot houses are up on steep mountain slopes, built here in very narrow terraces, where only one row of trees have room, in sometimes five storeys one above the other. The front of these buildings is always facing the morning sun or the south, and are of glass, which are, with the roofs, removed in summer. There are such enormous quantities of these fruits grown in Italy (in the south without hot houses) that oranges are cheaper here than in New South Wales, where they grow so easily and almost wild. We noticed here that all fruit trees are sprayed, as reported in one of our former letters, with a solution of bluestone (vitriol of copper), lime and tobacco successfully against scale and other pests.

A bad style in these parts is the putting up of about 10 feet high garden and plantation walls, especially near townships. These walls, of raw and uncouth appearance, often for miles, are preventing the passer-by enjoying the view of a highly beautiful stretch of scenery. These insulting walls, like a slap in the face of humanity, leave for the toiling pedestrian only a strip of glaring hot blue sky open to admire, and appear to be an inheritance out of ancient insecure time. At present it appears to be sufficient to put up, like in the north of Europe, well shorn (about 4 feet high) thornbush hedges, interwoven with a few barbed wires, to keep cattle and “bad boys” outside.

Ten days ago we made from the town Tascolano, which is not far from our since three weeks occupied quarters at Maderno, a walk into a very interesting narrow mountain valley or gully. About two hours constant uphill walk brought us to a very powerful waterfall, the force of which is used for the working of a gigantic dynamo, which creates sufficient electricity for the lighting up of all streets and houses of the whole district. Further down in the valley these waters, before they flow into the lake, drive a stately row of paper mills.

On the lake a flotilla of seven steamers (the biggest of 300 h.p.) are very busily engaged to serve a very lively passenger, goods and mail traffic, which is said to increase annually, and is especially lively during the winter season, as hereabouts is scarcely any snowfall and very mild frosts. Therefore the shores of the lovely Garda Lake are the favourite dwelling places of a great number of foreigners, especially English and Germans; but at the present moment (end of April, 1900), at the time of the opening of the great Paris exhibition, a sudden exodus has set in here, floating towards west—Paris.

H. and F. Rieck,
of Coff’s Harbour, N.S. Wales.