The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1914-10-08

Although 1t was rather extraordinary
| hardly agreed with the statement Of
one lady that that was worth coming
to Rome to see"
OF course we went down into the
Catacombs guided by a tallow candle
and a monk of strange and wonderful
appearance, caused chiefly by the fact
that the crown of his head was com
pletely shorn of hair, while that around
his face had been allowed to grow into
sort of a halo. 1t seemed rather in
c~ongruous that threshing should be
going on in the fields adjoining the
Catacombs, but that was the case. The
fields where the grain had been cut
were filled with bright red peoples, a
pretty sight.
From Florence. the city famous for
its wonderful art galleries, where we
we took a side trip to Pisa to see
whether the famous Leaning Tower
really leans. We decided that it did.
Leaving here we arrived in Venice in
the evening and had our first gondola
ride in gong up to our hotel, an hours
ride. In Venice they have no lawns,
trees or horses. Their canals are, in
most cases, their streets and they step
out their front door into a gondola and
go wherever they wish. Venice at
night is like faryland when the lights
shine out over the water, and when
the dirt and odors do not force them
selves on your notice. We passed I'M
der the Bridge of Signs W. which
condemned prisoners made their way
to their doom. We were on the Rialto
bridge famous in Shakespeare's Mer-
chant of Venice. We visited the fam
Gus lace factories, where you can buy
lace collars for a SOMEONE of the
Tettrazini kind however. One of my
friends one day caused a good deal of
excitement by letting a little youngster
look in the finder of her kodak. Pref
ty soon she had all the little Vene-
tians in town at her heels and couldn't
get rid of them until we got in a
gondola.
Boat trips through the lake region
in northern Italy with the Alps in
the distance, proved a very pleasant
diversion from the railroad. Our trip
across the Alps, however, from Italy
to Switzerland was made by carriage,
and was one great delight from be-
ginning to end. Our route lay over
the Simplore Pass, not a very steep
ascent but steadily up, over a smooth
hard road, which led beside a racing,
foaming stream with huge boulders
in it's bed. AS we went farther up, the
mountains gradually became higher
and more majestic, and every little
way a mountain stream would come
tumbling down with numerous water
falls, like a ribbon of foam, to join the
stream beside us. Up among the snow
peaks we saw SldCleIS anu traces VI
an avalanche that occurred in 1901.
A friend of mine and | got out and
walked for several hours, until We
reached the top, in order to get warm,
picking the alpine roses that grew in
such profusion by the way.
The valleys in Switzerland with
their quaint villages and the fields cut
up in such tiny plots that the whole
gives the appearance of a crazy quilt
as you look down on it, are veritable
garden spots for beauty. | realized
this especially when we wound in and
out among the hillsides on our way
up to the base of the Jungfrau. AS We
looked down on the villages nested
there, they looked SO peaceful in their
s~eclusion amid those grand mountain
peaks, that l wished | might stay
there for weeks instead of getting
only the fleeing glimpse that | did.
Although many other places were
more interesting historically, for real
pleasure l think l preferred SwitzeI.
land to all the countries l visited.