From Castle Ambras it is but a short journey by tramway to Igls, which is situated nearly a thousand feet above Innsbruck, but cannot be seen from the town. There are also two roads by which one may reach this little mountain village; one leading past Ambras, which is favoured by the less energetic of walkers, and the other, by which we ascended, much steeper, more picturesque and shorter. From Wilten it passes over the Sill Bridge and then ascends the Paschberg and winds along the edge of the fine Sill Gorge. When the little village of Vill is reached one seems suddenly to step into a fresh region of experience; one singularly different from that of Innsbruck, which, after all, lies but a mile or two away in the valley down below. Here as one comes in sight of the elegantly tapering red spire of the church one obtains an insight into the life of the upper valleys, and soon notices the Tyrolese custom of adorning the outside walls of the house with paintings, which, generally religious in subject, are many of them of a striking and even meritorious character as regards execution. In Vill none should fail to notice the painting of the Angel of Peace, which is over the doorway of a house in the main street. [Sidenote: BEAUTIFUL IGLS] One of the most beautiful walks hereabouts is that by the path which leads down through the woods to Gärberbach inn on the great Brenner High Road, from which point Berg Isel can be reached on foot in less than half an hour. Still climbing upwards from Vill and leaving the sights and sounds of the valley behind us we gradually approach Igls. Innsbruck and every trace of the wide valley and environing hills across it have suddenly vanished, and one finds one's self in the midst of wide extending and restfully green upland pastures, with a vista of the charmingly situated little villages of Natters and Mutters, across the Sill Gorge (which here is almost imperceptible) with their church steeples, green tinged and red turreted, shining in the clear Alpine air, and giving to the scene just that touch of colour which an artist loves. It is possible in Alpine valleys such as that in which Igls nestles to more truly estimate the factors which make the Tyrolese such a home-loving and patriotic people; and to realize how the chief human as well as religious associations even nowadays--as they did in the past--cluster round the village churches which rear their slender spires Heavenwards almost wherever half a dozen houses are grouped together. There are many splendid peaks towering above the picturesque valley in which Igls lies; amongst them the Habicht, more than 10,700 feet, Saile-Spitze, and the rugged Waldraster-Spitze, 8920 feet; and the lower slopes are well-wooded and beautiful at all seasons in their varied tints of green.