Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II VENICE TO BELLUNO Treviso—Cornuda—Asolo—Feltre (Journey by railway ; total distance 72 miles ; 4 trains daily ; time 4-6 hours ; fares 13 fr. 15 c., 9 fr. 25 c., 5 fr. 95 c. Carriages changed at Treviso. Hotels at Belluno— Alle Alpi (first-class English house); Cappello (Alpine Club).) In the summer months the lagune morte, between Venice and the mainland, become the lagune vive. Sea-pinks, and sea-lavender, or marsh-rosemary, clothe them in rich profusion. As we passed over them on our way to the Dolomites it seemed as if the hills had divested themselves of their purple robes to spread them over the rippling surface. At Mestre, where we were switched off the Milan on to the Treviso line, long rows of waggons of tree-trunks and planks of wood suggested at once the forests and saw-mills of the Dolomites. Our iron-way now became a green lane of acacia hedges, beyond which stretched on either hand a rich fertile country, divided up into small maize fields by rows of mulberry trees, with leafy vines between, hanging in graceful festoons. How happy the peasants in the cosy villages, and in the old thatched cottages, and more modern red-tiled ones, which we passed, ought to be, with the supply of their more pressing needs thus laid to their hands—the maize and the vine yielding them their staple articles of food and drink, polenta and wine, and the leaves of the mulberry feeding the silkworms to spin their clothing ! Treviso (i8| miles. Hotels—Stella l?Oro and Cerva; rooms 2 to 3 frs.) At Treviso we changed carriages, leaving the main line for the Belluno branch, and by missing a train we saw the chief objects of interest in this town, whose position, between two streams, Dante, who lived a short time here, describes in Paradiso, Canto IX. :— ...