3-034-689 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Dora Valley, Mont Cenis Railway, 1871. 'A View of the romantic scenery in the valley of the Dora Riparia, at Susa [in Italy], now follows our Illustrations of the Mont Cenis Railway and the great tunnel through the Alps...The peasantry of this Alpine region are not scientific agriculturists, but they are a sturdy, shrewd, and diligent race; and many of them emigrate...learning some ingenious handicraft or trade, with the profits of which they may, in some cases, return to a life of leisure in their old age. The little town of Susa, founded by the Romans as Segusium, at the junction of the two roads, which cross the Mont Genèvre Pass into Dauphiny, and the Mont Cenis Pass into Savoy, will henceforth not lie in the route of general traffic. It has been remarked...that the new line of railway, to the tunnel at Bardonnèche, leaves the Turin and Susa line at Bussolino, turning away to the left hand, in travelling from Turin, and passing by Exilles, Salbertrand, and Oulx, towards Mont Thabor, but entering the tunnel at the Col de Fréjus. The valleys of the Clusone, the Germanasca, the Po, and the Stura, which lie farther south, above Pinerolo and Saluzzo, are still more interesting, as they were the abode of the persecuted Waldenses'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.