Identifier: italyfromalpstom00stie (find matches)
Title: Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Stieler, Karl, 1842-1885 Cavagna Sangiuliani di Gualdana, Antonio, conte, 1843-1913, former owner. IU-R Paulus, Eduard, 1837-1907 Kaden, Woldemar, 1838-1907 Trollope, Frances Eleanor, d. 1913 Trollope, Thomas Adolphus, 1810-1892
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Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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at we come to is calledMoneglia, above whose roofs rises an ancient fortress which once commanded the entranceinto this rocky gorge ; for here the road grows ever wilder and steeper, and leaves the 144 ITAL Y. sea-shore for the inland mountain fastnesses. Already we are nearly two thousand feetabove the blue mirror of the Mediterranean when we come to a solitary hostelry that bearsthe name of Bracca, which is also the name of the whole valley through which the road iscarried here, and finally we reach the highest point of the pass. We have made a widedetour, and are at a considerable distance from the sea in the midst of a wild mountainouscountry ; but now we begin to descend again, and the hard poverty to which this stony,sterile soil condemns its inhabitants, gives place to smiling ease as soon as we descend intothe valley of Borghetto. In Cassana close at hand, are several caverns renowned for thediscovery of numerous fossil bones in them. The wild burnt-up torrent bed by which the
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THE ISLAND PALMARIA, IN THE BAY OF SPEZIA. road passes to go to Cassana belongs to the little mountain streamlet the Vara; we passthrough one more grey solitary village called San Benedetto, and then come once more tothe coast. That is the old mountain road which we have been describing, but now,—likemany another similar pass,—it is almost deserted ; for the railway is now open from Sestrito Spezia. It cost years of labour to win this railway from the rocky cliffs and sandyshore, but it is at length completed, and thousands of strangers traverse it yearly. Here, aswe speed along with the swiftness of the wind, we get a glimpse of a blue chain of mountainsdelicately outlined on the distant sky, and are told that those are the mountains ofCarrara ; and presently in the bay that opens beautifully before us, we come in sight ofSpezia. The town itself is small, and devoid of splendour or attraction, although they arebuilding new palaces there every year, but its position amid a green b

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