Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car

erona, is the most romantic region in all Italy. It is the borderland between the south and the north, and, as it was a battle-gro

great, its banks are lined with historic and artistic ruins, from the old fortress at Marina di P

and considered collectively. One should not be included in an itinerary without t

usy themselves therewith, are in the background, hidden behind a barrier of bureaucracy. Pisa, a town of twenty-six thousand inhabitants, has a tribunal of nine civil judges, a criminal court presided over by sixty-three more, and a "ro

or interior towns of central Italy. The Tyrrhenian Sea is but a gulf of the Mediterranean, but just where it b

brink of its grave. Commerce and industry are far from active and its streets are half deserted; many of them are literally grass-grown and all the o

o, the Baptistery and the tottering Torre. The group is one of the scenic surprises of Italy, and the automobilist has decidedly the best opportunity of experiencing the emotions it awakes, for he does not have to come out from town (for the monuments are some ways from the centre

ce days. One is now a dependence of a hotel; another has been appropriated by the post office; others are

utomobilist in a satisfactory manner. Its garage accommodations are abominably confined, and to get in and out one takes a considerable risk of damaging his mud-guards, otherwise they are

ery grand, or even luxurious. They strike a middle course however, and are indicative of the solid co

rd design and building in all the world. It is calm and

o be one of the best of Italian roads. It is and it isn't; it all depends upon the time of the year, the fact that the road may recently have been repaired or not, and the state of the weather. We went over it in a rain which had been falling steadily for three days and found it ver

n Vittorio in 1364, and each year the event is celebrated by the inhabitants. It seems singular that a people should seek

remarking, but is indicative of the prosperity of the country round about. Pontedera has no hotel with garage acco

irst rank, and like others of the same class-Fiesole, Colle and Volterra-(though its hill-top site may have nothing to do with this) it had the privilege of conferring nobility on plebeians. The Grand Duke of Tuscany in the nineteenth century accordingly made "an English gentleman of Hebrew extra

and sending them to the Florence market, plaiting straw to be ma

posed too, that Florence should be razed. One man only, Farinata degli Uberti, opposed it. "Never," said he, "will

belline parliament met still st

great long-necked bottle of chianti swung on a balance in the centre. It must hold at least two gallons, and, without the well-sweep arrangement for pouring out its contents, you would go dry. The wine served is as good as the rest of the fare offered. The fault with Empoli's hotel is that there is no garage and the proprietors recommend no one as competent to house your autom

ect road from Lucca to Flor

es, but not many of the habitués of Florence k

lying quite at the base of the Apennines, just before they flatten out into the seashore plain. Its country people, in town for a market-day, are chiefly peo

amily are still seen carved over several of the entrance gates. One has only to glance upward as he drives his automobile noisily through some

inous decay, though here and there a transformed or rebuilt p

Aside from this its specialty is churches, which are numerous, curious and beautiful, but except for the oppo

formation by Ferdinand I of an old castle of the Ardinghelli; its towers and pi

ines in 1203. It owes its name, Montelupo, to the adoption of the word lupo, wolf, by the F

nd pinnacles, with their battlements and machicolations, are still as they were when

which is entered by a broad straight road, the Strada Pisana, running beneath the Porta S. Frediano. Instinctive

Hotel Helvetia, or better yet the Hotel Porta Rossa, a genuine Italian albergo, patronized only by such strangers as come upon it unawares. It is very good, reasonable in price, and you may put your automobile in the remissa, which hou

ne was found ready with an answer, but at last a Cardinal timidly remarked, "Your Holiness, the City of Florence is a good city." "Nonsense," replied th

e a needed repose. Your automobile safely housed, your chauffeur will most likely be found, when wanted, at the Reininghaus on the Piazza Vittorio-Emanuel

one's motive is the admiration and contemplation of art or architecture, or the sampling of the chianti, en route, the journey through the Tuscan Apennines will ever remain as a most fragrant

lic. The simple life must be very nearly at its best here, for the almost unalterable fare of bread and cheese and wine, whi

res; via Siena, Orvieto and Viterbo, 325 kilometres; and via Arezzo, Perugia and Terni, 308 kilometres. They are all equa

existing to-day, date from the Etruscans, many centuries before Christ, and Dionysius wrote that t

st had several hundred towers, but Volterra and San Gimignano in the Val d'Elsa are the only remarkable collections still grouped after the

Gimi

ary a relic of the past as Pompeii. Of all the fifty odd towers of the city, none is more imposing than that of the Palazzo Publico, rising up above

n afterthought, built a century later. This tower of the Palazzo del Com

ned a well. Some one called the Etruscans lunatics, who were shut up in Volterra and allowed to pursue their craze for pottery in peace; but they were harmless lunatics, who devoted themselves to the arts of peace, rather than those of war. The alabaster bric-à-brac trade and traffic still exists, and provides a livelihood for a large part of the population of the city; but thousands of Tuscans, many of them from Vo

olterra's Etruscan walls. High up on its rocky plateau sits Volterra, pro

imignano or Volterra from his itinerary. They are but a few kilometres of

red himself upon an unsuspecting, though unwilling, peasant, as was the fashion with brigands of the time, and, through a "faux pas," offended a youth who was in love with one of his host's daughters.

One has to go to Corsica or Sardinia to experience the sensation of being held up,

at town to another. In finding one's way out of town the plan is simple, easily remembered and efficient; there are no false and confusing directions such as one frequently

t of its palaces is concerned. Siena possesses something unique in church architecture, as might be expected of a city which once contained sixty places of worship, a special patois, and women of su

The rest is of the middle ages, and the chief characters who stand out to-day are not the political personages of our time; but Bianca Capello and Marie de Medic