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 ruined castle to form a whole such as an artist or poet would revel in.

After a pause on the summit of the Pass, again comes a steep descent, as the drive is resumed, which continues to Andraz, where dejeuner is taken.  One can not live on air or scenery and even the most indefatigable sightseer sometimes turns with longing to luncheon!  Then one returns with added zest to the feast of eye and soul.  And at Andraz, as one lingers awhile after luncheon on that high mountain terrace, a lovelier scene than that spread before the eye could scarcely be imagined.  Indeed it is a “dream-scene,” and as seen in the sleepy stillness of the early afternoon, when the shadows are already playing with the lights and gradually overcoming them, it seems like fancy, not reality.

Again the carriage is taken and soon the road is climbing once more, this time giving fine views of the Sella group of peaks and going through a series of picturesque valleys.  At Arabba (5,255 feet), a pretty little village, the final ascent to Pordoi begins.  The scenery undergoes a change.  It becomes more wild and barren and the characteristics of the high Alps appear.  The hour begins to be late and it becomes cold, but the light still lingers as the carriage reaches the summit of the pass and stops at the new Hotel Pordoi (7,020 feet high) facing the weird, fantastic shapes of the Rosengarten and the Langkofel, on the one side and on the other the snowy Marmolata and the summits about Cortina....

The following morning the start is made for Botzen.  The way steadily descends for hours, past the pretty hamlets of Canazei, Campitello and Vigo di Fassa, surrounded by an imposing array of Dolomite peaks.  After crossing the Karer Pass the scenery becomes much more soft and pastoral.  Below the pass, most beautifully situated is a little green lake called the Karer-See....