The Hotel Brocco is
the best to go to. The village is about two hours below the top of
the pass; the walk to this is a pleasant one. The old Roman road
can still be seen in many places, and is in parts in an excellent
state even now. San Bernardino is a fashionable watering-place and
has a chalybeate spring. In the summer it often has as many as two
or three thousand visitors, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the
Lago Maggiore and even from Milan. It is not so good a sketching
ground--at least so I thought--as some others of a similar
character that I have seen. It is not comparable, for example, to
Fusio. It is little visited by the English.
On our way down to Bellinzona again we determined to take S. Maria
in Calanca, and accordingly were dropped by the diligence near
Gabbiolo, whence there is a path across the meadows and under the
chestnuts which leads to Verdabbio. There are some good bits near
the church of this village, and some quaint modern frescoes on a
public-house a little off the main footpath, but there is no
accommodation. From this village the path ascends rapidly for an
hour or more, till just as one has made almost sure that one must
have gone wrong and have got too high, or be on the track to an
alpe only, one finds one's self on a wide beaten path with walls on
either side. We are now on a level with S. Maria itself, and
turning sharply to the left come in a few minutes right upon the
massive keep and the campanile, which are so striking when seen
from down below.
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