Little Dorrit, St. Bernards, and Online Lit

I am reading Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens currently (which is fantastic so far - I'm a little more than 1/2 way through) when I went down another very interesting rabbit hole! There is a scene in which a group, including the Dorrits, is traveling through Switzerland and they are in a place called The Great St. Bernard Pass. They are on mules and they come to a monastery to stay and they talk about the dogs and... well I just had to stop and Google all of this obviously. So, the Great St. Bernard Pass is absolutely beautiful! I could see why they were on mules. It appears to be paved now but it's possible this road was not paved when Dickens wrote about it. 

And then I found this link which tells all about the monastery and the famous St. Bernard Dogs, and provides links to even more info. I got completely lost. What a fascinating and dreamy place! If we ever get around to doing my husband's family reunion in Switzerland (he's Swiss) this will be a must see! Unless I have to go down those roads on mules 😳

That's the monastery in the background and the famous dogs!!

Oh! And also I found this awesome site for reading Classic Literature AND it provides summaries! It's called The Literature Network and you can find it here at Online-Lit dot com.

UPDATE: Oh yea, check out this great review of Little Dorrit that I really learned a lot from. When I'm done I plan to watch the mini-series with Claire Foy and Matthew Macfayden and I'll let you know how it holds up!