In an easterly direction from Bozen lies the Eggenthal and its famous waterfall. The road through the former is one of great picturesqueness and grandeur—along the hillsides, across high bridges, and through gorge-like rock cuttings, which to be fully appreciated cannot be travelled better than a-foot. In the same direction, too, lies the beautiful Karrersee, surrounded by its belt of sombre pines above whose feathery tops shine the rocky peaks and snow-clad summits of the Dolomite giants.
THE ROSENGARTEN
From Bozen, too, the famous Rosengarten, which lies to the east of the town, should be visited. But it is not a garden of roses after all, but a collection of stupendous and rocky peaks which blush red at sunset. Those who expect flowers other than alpen rosen, gentian, and the like, will be disappointed, as was the young lady who undertook the excursion in the hope of seeing roses galore such as one may find in the "attar" districts of the Balkan Provinces and especially in Bulgaria.
But if from Bozen one looks merely for the rosy hue to tint the skyward-piercing pinnacles of rock, which have been poetically called the "Rosengarten," or rambles in the picturesque and beautiful valleys and tiny defiles at their feet, one will not be disappointed. And the "roses," like other similar phenomena, are in a sense a weather glass; the deeper the red they glow the finer the ensuing day. At first a plum-hued twilight, such as one gets in the Maloja valley, seems to fall down out of the sky, and then the mountain peaks commence to receive their baptism of crimson. Then at last, as the sun sinks behind the interposing Guntschna Berg, only the highest peaks continue for a short time longer to glow with increasing, and then fading, depth of colour, till at length the plum-bloom shadows conquer the "roses" and the cool twilight comes.
The origin of the descriptive phrase "the Rosengarten" is (so far as we have been able to discover) lost in the mists of antiquity. But there is a rather pretty legend concerning the Garden itself. Long ago (the story tells us), when men were perhaps happier and certainly less sophisticated and cynical than they are now, and believed in fairies, gnomes, and magic, there lived a dwarf named Laurin or Laurenz reigning over the other dwarfs, who inhabited a country in the centre of the Schlern. By some means or other this dwarf managed to see and fall in love with the beautiful, golden-haired sister of a retainer of Dietrich of Bern, in Switzerland. After having seized her he bore her to his palace of crystal in the interior of the mountains, and there kept her prisoner. Soon, however, the brave and gallant knight Dietrich, and his squire, who was named Dietlieb, determined to rescue the abducted maiden, and for this purpose they came up from Italy where they were at the time, and finding an opening entered the Schlern, and after a fierce fight succeeded in conquering the dwarf, notwithstanding the fact that of course the latter was assisted by a magician. Laurin was not, however, killed, but spared by Dietrich at the request of Dietlieb. It was unfortunate clemency, however, as Laurin, professing himself grateful and offering them refreshment after their labours and fight, gave them drugged wine, so that when they awoke they discovered that they had been bound and cast into a dungeon of the dwarf's castle. From this predicament they were happily freed by Dietlieb's sister, Simild, and after another fierce encounter with the dwarfs they defeated them, and trod the famous Rosengarten roses underfoot, their places being taken by those that bloom at sunset upon the peaks above the site of Laurin's mythical palace.
That, at all events, is the story we have been told, and though the Rosengarten and its miniature valleys are beautiful enough for real roses to have their home there, none grow there now save figurative ones caused by the sunset light.
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.
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.