Bok Review

"Over Tyrolese Hills" by F S Smythe
Hodder and Stoughton, 1935

“Beauty and grandeur there are in full measure in Tyrol. It is a country for a wanderer. Mountain travel in the Himalayas has wedded me to mountain wandering. Climb mountains from a centre if you will, but consummate your love for the hills by wandering across them. Cross their passes and traverse their peaks. Climb upwards out of a valley in the dawn and descend into another valley in the evening. Then you will taste the very essence of travel, this queer desire that sends man so far – he knows not why. This essence is so elusive as to be indescribable in words. You taste it when the last steep slope of the pass is beneath you and the blue distances spring upwards to your vision; you taste it when, rucksack on back, you set out in the keen pine air and feel the rocky hillside beneath your eager feet, and you feel it in the evening when you sit at peace over your glass of wine in some little inn, content to know the pleasant languor of fatigue.”

See the article by Raymond Simpson about retracing Smythe's traverse of the Tyrol.

Return to the top of this page, or to the complete Index, or to this section's Index.