Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
We did not find the effigy of "the maid and her milk-white steed," on
which she had ridden over the Swiss frontier and swum across the Rhine
to warn the inhabitants of her old home of a projected attack by the
Swiss amongst whom she had gone to dwell in service. The genial
proprietor of the Oesterreichischer Hof, we found, had heard of "the
Maid." Alas! not from his fellow-townsfolk (who should have cherished
her memory), but, like the old lady in the upper town, from English
tourists, who had, doubtless, climbed the steep ascent on a similar
errand of inquiry and research to our own.
"Maid" or no maid, however, Bregenz is delightful, and well deserves
the title of "pearl of the Vorarlberg" which has been bestowed upon
it. In its quaint old streets, its Capuchin Convent, which is so
prominent a feature, standing as it does upon a wooded knoll of the
Gebhardsberg, and its fine church, to the south on another eminence,
with an ancient and weather-worn tower, there is plenty of interest.
Picturesque the place most certainly is, and the effect is greatly
heightened by the near presence of the lake, which stretches away in
front of the town to fair Constance in the far distance.
[Sidenote: FAREWELL, TYROL]
In leaving Tyrol by way of beautiful Bregenz, washed as it is by the
waters of one of the most delightful of Swiss lakes, one carries with
one a last impression which is fragrant with the memories of a
hospitable race, charming scenery, and innumerable things of historic,
artistic, and antiquarian interest. There is, indeed, no other gate
through which one would rather leave this "Land within the Mountains,"
which, as yet unspoiled by crowds of tourists and general
sophistication and the deterioration which arises therefrom, lures one
to return to it again and again.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] By a strange coincidence, whilst the following description of
this interesting and charming village was actually being written, the
news of its almost total destruction by fire reached the author,
necessitating the omission of some details. Many of the houses,
however, have been rebuilt, in much the same style as formerly.--C. H.
[27] Some authorities give the date as being several years
earlier.--C. H.
[28] It is possible that Miss Proctor's poem ("A Legend of Bregenz")
is founded upon the legendary story of Ehre Guta, who is reputed to
have delivered the country-folk of the Bregenz district from an attack
of the Appenzellers some time during the early part of the fifteenth
century.--C. H.
INDEX
A
Abbey of Wilten, 17
Abel of Cologne, work of, 99
Absam, 139-142
and Jakob Stainer, maker of violins, 139
dragon legend of, 140
painted houses at, 140
story of "Miraculous Window" at, 141
A buried city, 249
Adventures of Oswald von Wolkenstein, 217-220
Aeni, Pons, 7
A fifteenth-century "blue stocking," 194
Aguntum (Innichen) Station, 9
Albianum (Kufstein), 7
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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