Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
The Rosengarten is a fine centre for mountain ascents, and the famous
Vajolett towers and other rocky pinnacles present unfailing
attractions to the adventurous rock climber, even though nowadays
there can be very few "virgin" peaks or pinnacles to scale.
From the Rosengarten itself as well as from Bozen one can witness the
blooming of the roses, and the really wonderful and entrancing play of
colour, light and shadow over the stupendous peaks which forms an
unforgettable experience when seen during the late afternoon of a
summer day and onwards till twilight comes to gradually throw its blue
and mystic mantle over the valleys and the mountain summits.
[Sidenote: KLAUSEN]
North of Bozen, prettily situated by the banks of the Adige, and some
one thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level, stands the little,
though somewhat important, town of Klausen, with its long, narrow
street following the configuration of the gorge in which most of the
houses lie, dominated by the great Benedictine monastery of Säben
perched upon a steep vine-clad promontory overlooking the town and
river, and six hundred feet above it. A castle till the end of the
seventeenth century, the convent was attacked by the French in 1809,
and from all accounts the nuns were not respected, for upon the walls
of one of the towers on the hill is a painted crucifix, which the
people of Klausen say was placed there in memory of one of the nuns
who, pursued by the soldiery, jumped to her death over the
battlements. The first impression of Klausen is that of cleanliness,
for the tall houses strike one in the brilliant sunshine of a summer
day as very white, though most of them are relieved by patches of
vivid green, where window shutters hang upon the walls or keep the
sunshine from the windows. Klausen folk are fond of flowers, too, for
many hang trailing from balconies; pink and red geraniums, a variety
of clematis, and bunches of ruby-coloured valerian, and tufts of
yellow and orange nasturtiums. There are generally many monks about
the streets, too; sombre-looking figures in rough frieze habits, who
look at the stranger with mild curiosity, and then pass on their
silent way up the hillside, or through the one long, narrow street
which runs between the mountain side and the rushing river. Klausen
women bore a brave part in Hofer's struggle against the French and
Bavarians, and dressed in their husbands' and brothers' clothes gave
material aid in driving back the French through the pass in 1797.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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