From Brig one may make his entry into Italy, either over the picturesque Simplon route afoot or by diligence, or else beneath it through the railway tunnel. By an alternation of short steamboat and rail trips the journey is continued in a direction transverse to the longer axes of the border lakes Maggiore, Lugano, and Como, and later southward to Milan. In leaving the village of Como we pass over heavy morainic deposits on the apron borders of the expanded-foot glacier ([383], [385]) which once occupied the valley above. On the journey from Milan to Venice, over the fertile plains of Lombardy, the similar accumulations about Lake Garda ([414]) are first encountered at the little station of Lonato and left behind at Somma Campagna (Tornquist, Sammlung Geologische Führer, Vol. 9, Northern Italy, 1902).
The city of Venice is built upon pile foundations in the lagoon behind the barrier beach known as the Lido ([242], [428-429]). From here we may reach the Karst country by way of Trieste, some of the more interesting and typical features being found near Divača ([187-189], [422], [pl. 6 A]). In a different direction from Venice by way of Belluno we enter the Dolomites with their patterned relief and battlemented towers ([228], [445]).
Additional centers for geological excursions on the route to our point of departure from Italy are Rome and Naples. At the Italian capitol and in its neighborhood we may study the volcanic Campagna with its beds of tuff ([105]) and its crater lakes (405. See Sir A. Geikie, The Roman Campagna, Landscape in History and other Essays, Macmillan, 1905, pp. 308-352; also Deecke, Sammlung Geologische Führer, Vol. 8, Campagna, 1901). From Rome it is an easy journey to the cataract of Tivoli with its deposits of travertine ([184]). In the opposite direction from Rome across the Campagna rise the Alban Hills, ruins of a composite cone with several crater lakes on the sites of former vents. On the summit of the encircling crater rim, like the Monte Somma of the Vesuvian Mountain now a crescent only, is located the chief Italian station for earthquake study.
From Naples we may reach in short excursions and study with some care still active volcanic mountains. To the east is Mount Vesuvius ([94], [97], [122], [124], [127-137]), which was in grand eruption in April, 1906. Westward from Naples are the Campi Phlegraeii, or burning fields, with many craters. Of these Astroni offers a fine example of a large-cratered cinder cone ([105]). In the same vicinity are Monte Nuovo ([96]) and the Solfatara ([97]), the latter a type of volcano which no longer erupts lava, but in its place emits carbon dioxide and other gaseous emanations (Grotto del Cane). The starting point for excursions in the Phlegræan fields is Pozzuoli with its Temple of Jupiter Serapis ([254-255]), reached from Naples by an electric line which pierces the wall of an immense crater (Posilippo) composed of fine yellow volcanic ash known as Pozzuolan.
From Naples steamers make short excursions to Sorrento with its deep ash deposits, and to Capri with its blue grotto ([257-258]). Herculaneum ([139]) and Pompeii ([122]), buried during the eruption of 79 A.D., are on the line of the Circum-Vesuvian Railway.
Steamships to New York from Naples call at Gibraltar, the land-tied island par excellence ([241]). Most steamships of the southern route pass through or near the volcanic islands of the Azores, and certain boats touch at Algiers, from which a line of railway gives access to Biskra on the borders of the Desert of Sahara.
Throughout these pilgrimages the traveler should be on the alert to note not only the agent responsible for the features which come under his observation, but, especially where this is the common sculpturing agent of running water, he should not fail to notice the stage of the erosion cycle which is represented ([Chapter XIII]).