are two very attractive and well-kept hotels, with
charming walks, from which one looks on a splendid panorama, picturesque
in extreme.

From Misurina, the road again ascends, becoming very narrow and very
steep. The top is called "Passo Tre Croci," the Pass of the Three
Crosses. The outlook is very lovely, with the three serrated peaks Monte
Cristallo, Monte Piano and Monte Tofana, standing as guardian sentinels
over the little valley of Ampezzo far below, where lies Cortina
sleeping in the sun, while in the distance shine the snow fields of the
Marmolata. Just as steeply as it climbed up one side, the road descends
on the other side, to Cortina. This place is the capital of the valley
and altogether lovely; beautiful in its woods and meadows, beautiful in
its mountain views, beautiful in the town itself and beautiful in its
people.

Cortina has much to boast of--an ancient church and some old houses; an
industrial school in which the villagers are taught the most delicate
and artistic (and withal comparatively cheap) filigree mosaic work; and
a community of people, handsome in face and figure and possessing
a carriage and refinement superior to any seen elsewhere among the
mountaineers or peasantry. In the neighborhood of Cortina are many
excursions and also extended rock climbs, but those who go there in the
summer will be more apt to linger lazily amid the cool shade of the
trees than to brave the hot Italian sun on the peaks!

After a few days' stay at Cortina, the drive is continued. There are
many ways out. You can return by a new route to Toblach and the Upper
Tyrol. Or you can go south to Belluno and thence to northern Italy. Or
a third way and perhaps the finest tour of all is that over a series of
magnificent mountain passes to Botzen. This last crosses the Ampezzo
Valley and then begins the ascent of Monte Tofana, which here is
beautifully wooded. Steepness seems characteristic of this region!

It is hard to imagine a carriage climbing a road any steeper than that
one on the slopes of Monte Tofana! If narrow and steep is the way and
hard and toilsome the climb this Monte Tofana route most certainly
repays one when it reaches the Falzarego Pass (6,945 feet high) which is
certainly an earthly Paradise! One can not aptly describe a view like
that! It is all a picture; as if every part was purposely what it is,
here rocky, here green, here snowy, with summits, valleys, ravines and
villages and even a partly