Notwithstanding this "terrific" personage, it is not very difficult with the expenditure of a few kreutzers to obtain permission to enter a vineyard in process of harvesting. The labour employed is chiefly that of women and girls, who, armed with sharp sickles or large knives with heavy and curved blades, stand beneath the trellises and hold a wooden tray in one hand beneath the bunch to be severed. One skilled sweep of the sickle and the latter falls into the tray with a minimum of damage to the luscious fruit.
Here and there along the paths are wooden tubs into which the trays are emptied from time to time. And these tubs again are borne away by men to the huge vats or tubs bound with iron, which are slung to a framework or trolley on wheels to which oxen are harnessed, and by them brought to the nearest convenient point in the vineyard. Then when the vats are full almost to the brim, two men take up their positions beside them, and proceed to crush and pound the grapes, stems and all, into a dark-red, uninviting-looking mess with long-handled, heavy wooden hammers. In many Italian vineyards it is still the custom to "tread" the juice out, a practice which is far less cleanly and hygienic (though it is said more thorough and economical) than the Meran method. After the juice is all expressed it is set aside to ferment, and the other processes of wine making are afterwards gone through.
The famous grape cure consists apparently of eating as much of the fruit as one possibly can. Many doctors affirm that no particular benefit is derived or can be hoped for unless upwards of two pounds of fruit is consumed daily, the maximum quantity desirable being nine pounds! Immense as this may seem, we have been assured that some "patients" have considerably exceeded this amount.
Perhaps the grape cure is so popular because, for one thing, to eat a reasonable quantity of fully ripe and freshly gathered fruit is by no means a disagreeable task for most people, and because it can be taken anywhere.
In the cafés one sees crowds undergoing the cure; on the numerous and shady seats of the Gisela Promenade one sees folks eating grapes. And practically in every street and alley, and along the mountain paths in the vicinity of Meran one meets people with brown-paper bags, or if taking the cure very seriously with little baskets, all eating grapes as though their future well-being depended upon the quantity they could consume in a given time. The "old stagers" generally divide their daily quantity into two or three portions; taking one early in the morning before "Halbmittag," the second about mid-day, and the third at sundown.
To its many other attractions Meran has added for the holiday maker that of a good band, which performs during the season really most excellent music in front of the Kurhaus, or in one or other of the public gardens at Obermais. The Kurhaus, with its sheltered Wandelhalle or promenade, naturally forms the pivot upon which the more social side of the daily life of Meran turns. Here one meets not only the invalid, but the traveller from all parts of the Continent; and in the Kurhaus gardens one finds also those "birds of passage," who alight for a time on their way further north or south.
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
The Sports Platz is one of the best in Tyrol. On it are held tennis tournaments, cycle races (less than formerly), trotting events, and horse races; whilst in the winter months the centre is converted into an excellent skating lake. The races are largely attended by Italians as well as natives, and at the larger meetings there is generally some event of interest and importance from a sportsman's point of view.
A big race day at Meran has many of the social and picturesque elements of the smaller events at Chantilly. The ladies don their best toilettes, and the beautiful surroundings and brilliant sunshine all go to make a picture of great charm and animation.
On the outskirts and in the immediate neighbourhood of Meran are so many ancient castles that the town might well be called the "city of castles." Just outside the Papist Gate is the half-ruined Schloss Zenoburg, standing on a precipitous rock; whilst prettily situated at Obermais stands Schloss Rubein with a famous avenue of cypresses. Along the picturesque Bozen road is Schloss Katzenstein; which, seen across the fields from the hillside, looks like a grim outpost guarding the valley.