Piora 



with the pretty stream of the Fossbach, which 

 descends rapidly and in a succession of grand 

 waterfalls from Lac Rhitom into the Ticino. The 

 finest of the waterfalls is close to Piora, and the 

 lover of good flowers will be delighted to see the 

 two steep sides of the gorge studded with white 

 patches, which are the flowering spikes of the finest 

 of all Alpine saxifrages, 5'. cotyledon, that seems 

 only to reach its fullest beauty where it can find 

 bare rocks within reach of the spray of a water- 

 fall. The mount from Airolo took me a little 

 under four hours ; a good walker would do it in 

 half-an-hour less, or even an hour less, if he 

 was walking against time, which I was not. 

 Ladies are sometimes taken up on horses or a 

 chaise a porteur ; but the walk is quite prac- 

 ticable for ladies, and I found no real difficulty 

 in the walk up or down, though I confess to 

 having been glad when the walk came to its 

 end. 



The Hotel Piora is placed at the very edge of 

 the lake ; it is the only house in the neighbour- 

 hood, and it is a small hotel, so that those who 

 wish to go there must order their rooms some 

 days beforehand. But when once there the visitor 

 will soon find that it is a place to stay in, and 

 will not be in a hurry to go from it, unless, 

 perhaps, the weather is very bad ; and, though 

 I only experienced it for one day, I believe that 

 on many days the place is clouded with mist, 

 sometimes for days together. I would gladly have 

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