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Show - 1 ! V f s - v k M ,v t , t ; x I $ l? t , s , . - f . . - - - ' 1 . - . - - 1 -""" - h I- . x ! -i Picturlsquc Corner or meran MOXG the many famous health A and pleasure resorts smothered smoth-ered by the European war. one of the most attractive is Meran. A favored garden spot of earth, an ancient Roman outpost out-post where legionaries stood guard against northern barbarians and where Caesars sought to regain their dissipated health, Meran has maintained main-tained through all its checkered history a high reputation as a pleasure and health garden, and as a resort for rank and fashion, says the bulletin of the National Geographic society. This picturesque pic-turesque Tyrolese city, banked around by lesser Alps, has been a favorite winteriug place for wealthy Americans, Ameri-cans, a number of whom have purchased pur-chased villas here and some of whom have become permanent residents. Considerably more than 10,000 guests sought Meran each year, many, nominally, nomi-nally, for their health, but most for the beauties of climate and surroundings surround-ings and for the light gayeties of the fall and winter season. The counts of Tyrol, the noble family fam-ily from which the region took its name, long made Meran their residence. resi-dence. The much decayed castle of Tyrol, the original seat of the family, overlooks the town, and the mountain shelves and cliffs through the neigh borhood are crowned with many other ancient castles and fine chateaux. Meran is the first town of the upper Adige valley. It is . 42 miles south-southwest south-southwest of Innsbruck and 20 miles northwest of Bozen on the Brenner line. The rugged Kuechelberg lies behind it and all the hills- beside are covered with miles of areaded vineyards. vine-yards. Delicious grapes.and wine are the town's most famed products. A grape cure is one of the attractions of the place, while the climate draws many suffering from lung troubles. Normally, Meran's season begins in early fall and lasts through to the end -of spring. Italians Love Aquileia. Aquileia, ono of the first towns captured cap-tured by the Italians in their storm across the Austrian borders at the head of the Adriatic, stands foremost among the Austrian Italian-speaking possessions in the sentimental attachment attach-ment of the patriotic sons of Italy. Situated six miles back from the Adriatic Adri-atic sea, at the edge of the lagoons. In the Austrian province of Goerz and Gradisca, it was once a great and nourishing seaport, at one time ranking rank-ing as the second city of Italy. It was, in those days, one of the mightiest mighti-est bulwarks of the Roman empire against the pressing hordes of outside barbarians, a city of "proud walls and wide bespoken splendor." As late as the end of the fourtn century Ausonius placed it ninth on the list of the great cities of the earth. Today Aquileia is a mean, poverty-marked, poverty-marked, dwindling fishing village, with a few thousand inhabitants. Tne wonderful structures of its heyday have served for centuries as stone quarries, and nothing now remains of their fabulous splendor. Aquileia, regal re-gal city of the empire, and later great seaport and industrial city, has vanished, van-ished, in all likelihood for good. There remains from- its golden days merely a heterogeneous mass of relics, statues, mosaics, columns, friezes from its parks and buildings; lamps from its once famous factories, besides many homely survivals and nicknacks. Grave of Past Achievement. Trieste, the great seaport of today, is about twenty-five miles distant to the southwest. All the marks of the prosperity and importance of Aquileia have fled to Trieste, in the east, and to Venice, In the west. The once busy harbor Is choked with silt and drifting dunes, while rafts and fishing boats are almost the only craft that now thread the varying channels. The modern mod-ern village, counting 2,300 people, is unhealthy on account of its rice fields and is neglected and forgotten. Aquileia is a grave of past achievement achieve-ment and a much-weathered monument of the world of the Roman age. Its museum is rich in trophies of Roman times and its ancient cathedral and the remains of the patriarch's palace are its most eloquent concrete memories. memo-ries. Aquileia, as is much of the northern north-ern and western coast of the Adriatic, is a rich field for archeologists and antiquarians. The city is said to have been colonized colo-nized by the Romans as a frontier fortress against the Celts in 1S3 B. C. In 16S A. D. Marcus Aurelius made it one of the strongest fortified positions in the empire. During Hadrian's reign its population reached the 500,000 mark. Attila destroyed the city in 4"2 A. D., and it never recovered its greatness. Aquileia was great and strong only throughout its Roman history, when, during its prime, it ranked immediately after the Eternal city itself. Its fortunes were those of the Roman world, and modern Italy, looking back over the gulf of centuries, centu-ries, feels itself not only the descendant, descend-ant, but also the heir of Latin Rome. |