Leading the Blind (12 page)

Another feature just prior to the First World War was that ‘air trips may be taken in Zeppelin's air-ships in the Municipal Flying Ground'.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NORTHERN ITALY

D. H. Lawrence walked to Italy, and Goethe travelled by coach, as did Beckford and Heine, and countless others, some of note, most of course not. In the latter part of the nineteenth century tourists went by train, and aircraft today make it even more effortless.

Problems only began on reaching the frontier, though the traveller no doubt hoped that later compensations would erase all memories of difficulty. Old grumble-guts Murray, in
Northern Italy
, 1883 tells us what to be prepared for: ‘Passports are no longer indispensable, but all travellers are advised to secure with them this important
certificate of nationality.
' Baedeker, in 1897, says, ‘The countenance and help of the British and American consuls can, of course, be extended to those persons only who can prove their nationality.' Murray remarks that at the Custom-house luggage is opened and sometimes carefully searched. ‘Even in the case of persons giving an assurance that their luggage contains no prohibited article, the concealment of which will, if discovered, entail trouble and annoyance, the examination will probably be persisted in. This severity of search has been increased under the present Italian Government, and it is especially enforced upon travellers arriving by the St. Gothard Railway.' That is to say, British, the majority of whom used that route. One also had to note: ‘The Italian custom-house officers would consider it an insult to be offered money.'

Murray's
Switzerland
, 1891, consoles the traveller with the fact that he will have little difficulty in facing the Italian customs; though he then goes on to say that, at Chiasso, ‘the head officials have made themselves notorious in the execution of their duty and discourtesy towards travellers'.

After the early Murray handbooks, in which it was assumed that travellers could afford to be extravagant, later editions positively extol niggardliness. Concerning railway travel in Italy: ‘The clerks at the stations sometimes refuse to give change; it is therefore desirable to be
always prepared with the exact amount of the fare
', which is seconded by Baedeker, who adds: ‘“Mistakes” are far from uncommon on the part of the ticket-clerks or the officials who weigh luggage.' He also says: ‘During the last few years an extraordinary number of robberies of passengers' luggage have been perpetrated in Italy without detection, and articles of great value should not be entrusted to the safe-keeping of any trunk or portmanteau, however strong and secure it may seem.' Anyone tempted to carry arms in defence of life and belongings while in the country was told by Bradshaw: ‘Revolvers are liable to be confiscated.'

A humantiarian view is taken by Baedeker, as shown by the following: ‘The enormous weight of the trunks used by some travellers not unfrequently causes serious and even lifelong injury to the hotel and railway porters who have to handle them.' But the suggested remedy would also benefit thieves, who would not suffer a hernia in their attempts to carry them away: ‘Travellers are therefore urged to place their heavy articles in the smaller packages and thus minimize the evil as far as possible.'

Accommodation at hotels in the large provincial cities was generally good, Murray says, and nearly equal to those elsewhere, ‘but at intermediate stations and off the main routes they are often very dirty, and infested with vermin to an extent of which those who travel only in winter can have no idea … When off the lines of railway or main road, those who wish tea and coffee in the evening should carry milk with them from the place where they slept the previous night, as it is often not to be had at the inns on the road. The tea at the smaller inns is generally so bad that travellers will do well to carry their own supply, together with a small metal teapot.'

English travellers, here as elsewhere, were apt to be charged higher prices, and ‘it
will save trouble and annoyance to fix beforehand the prices to be paid for everything
. The second floor is preferable to the first, and the traveller will do well to remember that on account of the defective drainage in most towns of Italy, it is always better to incur the fatigue of ascending a number of stairs than to sleep on or near the ground floor. In the smaller towns it would be absurd to expect the comforts and conveniences of great cities: travellers never gain anything by exacting or requiring more than the people can supply; and if they have sufficient philosophy to keep their temper, they will generally find that they are treated with civility.'

Dr James Henry Bennet, in his health-seekers' guidebook to benign climates,
Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean
, 1875, gives a rather idealized version of travelling by carriage, asking us to remember that ‘the driver for the time is your servant, and must do your bidding, and everything should be arranged in conformity with previous habits and laws of hygiene, provided the written agreement be not infringed. Thus the journey becomes a pleasure, and a source of health instead of a trial of strength, as often occurs.'

His plan called for the traveller to get up at six or seven, ‘to take a cup of tea or coffee, and to start at seven or eight, the carriage being closed at the top as a protection against the sun, open at the sides, and prepared for the day's campaign by a comfortable arrangement of umbrellas, books, maps, and provisions. The latter usually consisted of a basket of bread, meat, biscuits, wine, and fruit, provided before starting, with Liebig's extract of meat, a little of which makes bad soup good, and a bottle of Dunn's extract of coffee which transforms any kind of milk, cow's, sheep's, goat's, or camel's, into good coffee. At nine or ten we stopped for breakfast, which can be obtained anywhere, if the traveller is contended with milk, bread, butter, eggs, and honey. Then the journey is resumed, and at twelve or one the principal stoppage of the day takes place for the dinner of the driver and his horses.'

After the traveller has eaten a solid lunch, ‘the mid-day rest becomes a period of liberty, during which he can survey all around, analyse the habits and customs of the peasantry, study the architecture of their houses, farms, out-buildings, their agricultural operations, and the local botany. Finally, if agreeable, and weather permits, he can take a good hygienic walk in advance of three, four, or more miles. When tired he has only to sit down by the roadside in some picturesque nook until the carriage overtakes him. If the driver, as is usually the case, rests for a couple of hours, and four or five miles have been got over, it is nearly three before the carriage is again resumed. To me these midday strolls in advance were the pleasantest part of the day's journey. After that, progress is steadily made until six, when the final stoppage takes place. Then comes dinner, a walk, or a chat with your companions or some new acquaintances, a cup of tea, and an early retirement for the night.'

A favourable view of Italy and the Italians is found in the eight-volume series of guidebooks by Augustus J. C. Hare, who regrets the coming of the railways as the means of locomotion. In
The Cities of Northern Italy
, 1883, he says, in defence of horse-drawn transport: ‘The slow approach to each long-heard of but unseen city, gradually leading up, as the surroundings of all cities do, to its own peculiar characteristics, gave a very different feeling towards it to that which is produced by rushing into a railway station – with an impending struggle for luggage and places in an omnibus – which, in fact, is probably no feeling at all. While, in the many hours spent in plodding over the weary surface of a featureless country, we had time for so studying the marvellous story of the place we were about to visit, that when we saw it, it was engraved for ever on the brain, with its past associations and its present beauties combined.'

He almost regrets that: ‘The journey to Italy is now absolutely without difficulties, but the most desirable approach is that by the Corniche road along the Riviera. Then, after the dreary wind-stricken plains of Central France, and the stony arid hills of Provence, one enters Italy at Mentone by a portal like the gates of Paradise, and is plunged at once into the land of the citron and myrtle, of palms and aloes and cyclamen. Of course one must not expect that all Italy will be like these Riviera roads, and one is, as far as scenery goes, receiving the best first, but it is charming to feel the whole of one's ideal realised at the very outset.'

In order to avoid disappointment in Italy, Hare tells us that it is necessary not to expect too much, ‘for it is in the beauty of her details that Italy surpasses all other countries, and details take time to find out and appreciate. Compare most of her buildings in their entirety with similar buildings in England, much more in France and Germany, and they will be found very inferior.'

Another thing to remember, so as to get the best out of travel in Italy,

is not to go forth in a spirit of antagonism to the inhabitants, and with the impression that life in Italy is to be a prolonged struggle against extortion and incivility. A traveller will be cheated oftener in a week's tour in England than in a year's residence in Italy. During eight whole winters spent at Rome, and years of travel in all the other parts of Italy, the author cannot recall a single act or word of an Italian of which he can justly complain; but, on the contrary, has an overflowing recollection of the disinterested courtesy, and the unselfish and often most undeserved kindness, with which he has universally been treated. There is scarcely an Italian nobleman, whose house, with all it contains, would not be placed at the disposition of a wayfarer who found himself in an out-of-the-way place or where the inn was unbearable; there is scarcely a shopkeeper, who would not send his boy to show you the way to a church, one, two, or even three streets distant; there is scarcely a carriage which would not be stopped to offer you a lift, if they saw you looked tired by the wayside; scarcely a woman who would not give you a chair (expecting nothing) if you were standing drawing near her house …

I find Hare by far the best writer on Italy and of things Italian, being able to back him up on his encomiums of general honesty. On two occasions during one of my motor trips through the country money was put back into my hand with a smile when I had inadvertently given too much. Neither can I but agree when he writes that ‘nothing can be obtained from an Italian by compulsion. A friendly look and cheery word will win almost anything, but Italians will not be driven, and the browbeating manner, which is so common with English and Americans, even the commonest
facchino
regards and speaks of as mere vulgar insolence, and treats accordingly … Unfortunately the bad impression one set of travellers leaves, another pays the penalty for.'

Hare gives one instance of the heartless behaviour of tourists: ‘The horrible ill-breeding of our countrymen never struck me more than one day at Porlezza. A clean, pleasing Italian woman had arranged a pretty little caffe near the landing place. The Venetian blinds kept out the burning sun; the deal tables were laid with snowy linen; the brick floor was scoured till not a speck of dust remained. The diligence arrived, and a crowd of English and American women rushed in while waiting for the boat, thought they would have some lemonade, then thought they would not, shook out the dust from their clothes, brushed themselves with the padrona's brushes, laid down their dirty travelling bags on all the clean table-cloths, chattered and scolded for half an hour, declaimed upon the miseries of Italian travel, ordered nothing and paid for nothing; and, when the steamer arrived, flounced out without even a syllable of thanks or recognition. No wonder that the woman said her own pigs would have behaved better.'

Hare is also sympathetic to the Italians on the matter of accommodation. ‘In regard to hotel life, it cannot be too much urged, for the real comfort of travellers as well as for their credit with the natives, that the vulgar habits of bargaining, inculcated by several English handbooks, are greatly to be deprecated, and only lead to suspicion and resentment. Italians are
not
a nation of cheats, and cases of overcharge at inns are most unusual, except at great Anglicised hotels, where they have been gradually brought about through the perquisite money demanded by couriers.'

Baedeker, like Murray (and most other guidebook writers), airs a harder view, when he says that the second-class hotels, ‘thoroughly Italian in their arrangements, are much cheaper, but they are rarely very clean or comfortable. The inns in the smaller towns will often be found convenient and economical by the
voyageur en garçon
, and the better houses of this class may be visited even by ladies. If no previous agreement has been made an extortionate bill is not uncommon. The landlord is generally prepared to have his first offer beaten down by the traveller, and in that expectation usually asks more at first than he will afterwards agree to accept. The recommendations of landlords as to hotels in other towns should be disregarded. They are not made with a single eye to the interests of the traveller.'

On the obsessive topic of cleanliness, Baedeker prepares those who leave the beaten track for privations. ‘Iron bedsteads should if possible be selected, as they are less likely to harbour the enemies of repose. Insect powder, or camphor, somewhat repels their advances. The gnats are a source of great annoyance, and often of suffering, during the summer and autumn-months. Windows should always be closed before a light is introduced into the room. Light muslin curtains round the beds, masks for the face, and gloves are employed to ward off the attacks of these pertinacious intruders. The burning of insect powder over a spirit-lamp is also recommended.'

Should one wish to communicate with home, or any other place: ‘A cautious traveller will take important letters to the post-office himself, or drop them into some of the letter boxes that are now distributed through an Italian town, since if given to an untrustworthy person to carry to the post-office they run the risk of being made away with for the sake of the stamps.'