Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car

Travellers b

ent. At Trouville, at Aix-les-Bains in France, at Cernobbio in the Italian Lake region, or on the Quai

A. T. Garages in Rome, Naples, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Venice, Turin and Padua and find the best of accommodation and fair prices. For a de

accordingly there is always accommodation to be found that is in a class between the resplendent gold-lace and silver-gilt establishments of the resorts and working-men's lodging houses. True there is the s

second order of tourist hotels, and the Italian landlord shows no disrespect towards a client who would know his price befo

ndence and knowledge on the part of the automobilist, as he arrives, will speedily put him en rapport with the Italian landlord. Look as wise as poss

st fare at the most favourable prices, but certainly at Rome and Venice, in the great hotels, it is far l

say that between Siena and Rome via Orvieto, or to Finale Marina or Varazze in Liguria, to one carriage and pair with two persons and a driver. Accordingly, this means increased prosperity for the inn-holder, and he would be a dull wit indeed if he didn't see it. He does see it in France, with a very clear vision; in Italy, with a point of view very little dimmed; in Switzerland, wh

ellowing cows, or an industrious blacksmith who begins before sun-up to pound out the same metallic ring that his confrères do all over the world. There is nothing

traveller, and this in spite of the fact that not every one likes his salad with garlic in liberal doses or his macaroni smother

s, those we are mostly used to elsewhere, taste like cotton seed or peanut oil, which is probably what they are. One need not blame the Italian for this, though when he himself eats of it, or gives it you to eat, it is the genuine article. You may eat it or not

ng heroic work in educating the country inn-keeper. Why should not some similar institution do the same thing in England and America? How many American country hotels, in towns of th

loggia" is entirely a myth of the guide books of a couple of generations ago. A cold bird, a dish of macaroni, a salad and a flask of wine will try no inn-keeper's capabilities, even with no notice beforehand. The Italian would seemingly prefer to serve meals in this

l towns, and is commonly included in the prezzo fisso, or should b

m with a mixed crew of his countrymen and pays no more attention to you than if you were one of them. That is, he doesn't exploit you as does the Swiss, he doesn't overcharge you, and he d

ed when the traveller wished he was a horse in order t

very little that is national about it. To find these one has to go elsewhere, to the small Ita

u this on short order if you do not seek anything more substantial. The minestra, or cabbage soup-it may not be cabbage at all, but it looks it-a sort of "omnium gatherum" soup-is warming and filling. Polenta, companatico, minestra and a salad,

rk who brings you water for the thirsty maw of your automobile, or to the amiable, sunshiny individual who lugs your baggage up and down to and from your room. This is quite enough, heaven know

y with a rough, uncomfortable sofa covered with a gunny sack, a small square of fibre carpeting (if indeed it has any covering whatever to its chilly tile or stone floor), and a few rush covered chairs. Usually there is no chimney, but there is always a stuffy lambrequined curtain at each window, al

rrangements and their proper care. It is an ever-to-be-praised and emulated fact that the common people of continental Europe are more frequently "luxurious" with regard to their beds and bed linen than is commonly supposed. They may eat off of an oilcloth (which by some vague conjecture they call "A

arbage barrel. Between meals, and bright and early in the morning, everything is flushed out with as generous a supply of water as is used by the Dutch housvrou in washing down the front steps.

latest fashion) it is a poor, shallow affair with a plug that pulls up to let the water out, but with no means of getting it in except to pour it in fro

reparing and cooking of his meals, and considerably more to the eating of them. The Italian's cooking utensils are many and varied and above all picturesque, and his table ware invariably well conditioned and cleanly. Let this opinion (one man's only, again let it be remembered) be reco

y-five years ago, indeed much less, the vetturino deposited his load of sentimental travellers, accompanied perhaps by a couri

y and wondrously clad, peer around corners and across lagoons with field glasses of a size and power suited to a Polar Expedition. Everybody is "doing" everything, as though their very lives depended upon their absorbing as much as possible of local colour, and that a

am and saurkraut, or to drink paleale or whiskey. Instead, he will get macaroni in all shapes and sizes, and tomato sauce and cheese over everything, to say nothing of rice, artichokes and onions now and again, and oil, of the olive brand, in nearly every plat. If you don't like these things, of course, th

nns at Venice; the 'Louvre,' the 'White Lyon,' the 'Arms of France;' the first entertains you for eight livres (lire) per day, the other two somewhat cheaper, but you must al

nationalities and all ranks, one finds isolated little Italian inns, backed up against a hillside or crowning some rocky promontory, where one may live in peace and plenitude for six or seven francs a day. And one is not condemned to eating only the national macaroni either. Frankly, the Neapolitan restaurate

have to live off it as many suppose. Notwithstanding, macaroni goes with Italy, as do crack

ng varieties. Tiny grains, stars, letters of the alphabet and extraordinary animals that never came out of any ark are also fashioned o

ne cylinder called a maccaro. The name macaroni

d as that made in Naples if it was made of Russian wheat instead of that from Dakota. As it is now made it is decidedly

to making rope. Inside it feels like an inferno. It doesn't pay

it is hung on poles. The workmen are lightly and innocently clad, and the workshops themselves are kept at as high a temperature as the stoke-room of a liner. Whether this is really necessary or not, the writer does not know, but h

at a very small price one can get a "filling" meal. You get it served on a dish, bu

oad of other days, whether they hailed from Kensington or Kalamazoo. They should never have left those superlatively excellent places. The food and Mazzini were the sole topics of travel talk once, but to-day it is more a question of whether one can get his railway connection at some hitherto unheard of little junction, or whether the

beyond a certain point. You like him for what he is though, almost as good a thing in his line as the French gar?on, in that he is obliging and a great

ight of its commercial possibilities in the technicalities of his craft, and his seeming desire only to pl

aves at one's feet is one of the things that one comes to Italy for, and one is content for the nonce never to recur to palazzos, villas, cathedrals, or picture galleries. There have been too many travellers in past times-and they exist to-day-who do not seek to fill the gaps between a round of churc

t a hotel is fairly lavish with the quantity of his tips, but each is minute, and for a small service he pays a small fee. We who like to impress the waiter-for we

share. Follow the Italian's own system then, give everybody who serves you something, however little, and give to those only, and then their little

e gallery or a great library, and one tips his cabman as he does elsewhere, and a dozen francs spent in