THE ALPS OF DAUPHINE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Being a traveller of more than thirty years' standing, fondly imagining that I had pretty well exhausted the accessible wonders of Europe, I was completely put out of my conceit by a railway journey last Friday, between Aix-en-Provence and Grenoble.
Having crossed the St. Gothard on a brilliant day in January last, its glorious scenery was still fresh in my memory, and yet I do not hesitate to give the preference for magnifi- cence and variety of scenery to the too seldom visited Alps of Dauphine, as viewed from the railway between Grenoble and Yeynes Junction, where the Gap-Briancon line branches off from the main Lyons, Grenoble, and Marseilles line. The latter, as an alternative route to the Rhone Valley line, is in the highest degree to be recommended to travellers not pressed for time, bound to or from the Riviera.
Where the marvellous beauty of the scenery culminates, as you approach the Col de la Croix Haute (3,500 ft. above the sea), the railway is cut in the face of the mountain, describing in the open a deep semi-circle, affording almost uninterrupted views of snow-fields and peaks, across a wide plain, intersected by black ravines.
I had no conception that France could boast of such a line, of which I cannot speak in higher admiration than by com- paring it favourably with the wonders of the St. Gothard. 'Travellers not bound for the Riviera, would find themselves even more amply rewarded by branching off at Veynes, for Briancon, and returning thence to Grenoble by the high-road mounting the valley of the Guisanne and descending that of the Romanche, by the Col de Mont de Lane. I have no doubt that this latter route is the finest drive in Europe, and it is one that may be taken in a landau.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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