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English, and German, by a Monseigneur sitting beside and below him. I got official photos showing the Pope, our party, and myself.
From Rome we travelled by train most of one day to Venice, and spent three days of conventional sightseeing by means of motor launches, ferry boats and gondolas, in ideal weather.
We continued northwards by train, passing through the long Brenner Pass to arrive at Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian Tyrol, on a showery early evening : seemingly, I was the only pilgrim who had an umberella on hand. Next morning we went on an interesting coach tour of the environs, including an inspection of the renowned baroque church with its dazzling white and gold interior covered with heavenly oil paintings, and also the amazingly lifelike cyclorama of the battle that was fought against Napoleonic forces, near-by. During the dull cold afternoon Jock and I ascended the high craggy, snow-topped, mountain that overhung the town. It was done in three stages : the first by funicular rail-car and the next two by separate cable cars, with a fine lookout and tea-room in between. To get to the highest point we climbed about a hundred and twenty steps on foot. The view of the snow-covered wilderness of peaks and valleys stretching away from us was extremely eerie.
Also included in our morning tour was a visit to the huge tomb that Maximillian the Austrian Emperor had built during his lifetime, in the plain little church adjoining the yellow palace : in the end he was not entombed there. It is a massive white marble cube, elaborately carved in low relief and surrounded by life-sized bronze representations of famous monarchs of mediaeval Europe, including an imagined likeness of the legendary King Arthur of England.
We were up extra early the next morning to pack our luggage, have our breakfast and travel through the smooth green velvety hills dotted with neat wooden farmhouses under very steeply pitched roofs, cross the frontier into Bavaria, and arrive at Oberammergau to see one of the decennial performances of the