The Automobilist Abroad

With regard to hotel charges for all classes of travellers, as well in England as on the Continent, there is an undoubted upward tendency which the automobile has done absolutely nothing to allay. One good is coming to pass, however, and that is uniformity of price for the class of accommodation offered, and (in France and most other Continental countries) the absolute abolition of the charge for "lights and service," an abominable and outrageous practice which still lingers in England – and for that matter Scotland and Ireland.

The discussion of the subject has been worn threadbare, and it is useless to enter further into it here, save to remark that since the automobile is bringing about so many reforms and improvements perhaps the abolition of this species of swindling on the part of the British hotel-keeper will disappear along with antiquated sanitary arrangements and uncomfortable closed-in beds.

In France – thanks again to the indefatigable Touring Club de France – they have eliminated this charge for service and lights entirely, and one generally finds hanging behind the door the little card advocated by the Touring Club, stating clearly the charge for that particular room and the price of the various things offered in the way of accommodation. This ought to be demanded, by law, of every hotel-keeper. Not every hotel in France has fallen in line, but those that have are reaping the benefit. The automobilist is a good advertiser of what he finds en route that pleases him, and scores pitilessly – to other automobilists – everything in the nature of a swindle that he meets with, and they are not few, for in many places the automobilist is still considered fair game for robbery.

As to the fare offered in English inns, as compared with that of the Continental hotel, the least said the better; the subject has been gone over again and again, so it shall not be reiterated here, save to quote Pierre Loti on what one eats for an English dinner.

"We were assembled round a horrible bill of fare, which would not be good enough for one of our humblest cook-shops. But the English are extraordinary folk. When I saw the reappearance, for the fourth time, of the fatal dish of three compartments, for badly boiled potatoes, for peas looking poisonously green, and for cauliflower drenched with a glue-like substance, I declined, and sighed for Poledor, who nourished my studious youth on a dainty repast at a shilling per day."

The modern tourist, and especially the tourist by automobile, has done more for the improved conduct of the wayside hotel, and even those of the large towns, than whole generations of travellers of a former day.

Once the hotel drew its income from the hiring-out of posting-horses, and the sale of a little food and much wine. As the old saying goes: "Four horses and four bottles of port went together in the account of every gentleman." Travellers of those days, if comparatively few, were presumably wealthy. To-day no one, save the vulgar few, ever cares that the innkeeper, or the servants, should suspect him of being wealthy.

It's a failing of the Anglo-Saxon race, however, to want to be taken for bigger personages than they really are, and often enough they pay for the privilege. This is only natural, seeing that even an innkeeper is human. Charges suitable for a milord or a millionaire have been inflicted on Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons simply because they demanded such treatment – for fear they would not be taken for "gentlemen." Such people are not numerous among real traveling automobilists; they are mostly found among that class who spend the week-end at Brighton, or dine at Versailles or St. Germain or "make the fête" at Trouville. They are known instinctively by all, and are only tolerated by the hotel landlord for the money they spend.

The French cook's "batterie de cuisine" is a thing which is fearfully and wonderfully displayed in all the splendour of polished steel and copper; that is, it is frequently so displayed in the rather limited acquaintance which the general public has with the cuisine of a great hotel or restaurant, whether it be in Paris, London, or New York.

In provincial France it is quite another thing. The chef-patron of a small hotel in a small town may be possessed of an imposing battery of pots and pans, but often, since he buys his pâtisserie and sweetmeats of the local pastry-cook, and since his guests may frequently not number a dozen at a time, he has no immediate use for all of his casseroles and marmites and plats ronds and sauteuses at one time, and accordingly, instead of being picturesquely hung about the wall in all their polished brilliancy, they are frequently covered with a coating of dull wax or, more banal yet, enveloped in an ancient newspaper with only their handles protruding. It's a pity to spoil the romantically picturesque idea which many have of the French batterie de cuisine, but the before-mentioned fact is more often the case than not.

Occasionally, on the tourist-track, there is a "show hotel," like the Hôtel du Grand Cerf at Louviers (its catering in this case is none the worse for its being a "show-place," it may be mentioned) where all the theatrical picturesqueness of the imagination may be seen. There is the timbered sixteenth-century house-front, the heavily beamed, low ceiling of the cuisine, the great open-fire chimney with its broche, and all the brave showing of pots and pans, brilliant with many scrubbings of eau de cuivre, to present quite the ideal picture of its kind to be seen in France – without leaving the highroads and searching out the "real thing" in the byways.

On the other hand, in the same bustling town, is the Mouton d'Argent, equally as excellent in its catering (perhaps more so), where the kitchen is about the most up-to-date thing imaginable, with a modern range, mechanical egg-beaters, etc. This last is nothing very wonderful to an American, but is remarkable in France, where the average cook usually does the work quite as efficiently with a two-tined fork, or something which greatly resembles a chop-stick.

In the cuisine electric lights are everywhere, but the up-to-dateness here stops abruptly; the salle à manger is bare and uninviting, and the rooms above equally so, and the electric light has not penetrated beyond the ground floor. Instead one finds ranged on the mantel, above the cook-stove in the kitchen, a regiment of candlesticks, in strange contrast to the rest of the furnishings. Electric bells, too, are wanting, and there is still found the row of jangling grelots, their numbers half-obliterated, hanging above the great doorway leading to the courtyard.

The European waiter is never possessed of that familiarity of speech with those he serves, which the American negro waiter takes for granted is his birthright. It's all very well to have a cheerful-countenanced waiter bobbing about behind one's chair, indeed it's infinitely more inspiring than such of the old brigade of mutton-chopped English waiters as still linger in some of London's City eating-houses, but the disposition of the coffee-coloured or coal-black negro to talk to you when you do not want to be talked to should be suppressed.

The genuine French, German, or Swiss waiter of hotel, restaurant, or café is neither too cringingly servile, nor too familiar, though always keen and agile, and possessed of a foresight and initiative which anticipates your every want, or at any rate meets it promptly, even if you ask for it in boarding-school French or German.

There is a keen supervision of food products in France, by governmental inspection and control, and one is certain of what he is getting when he buys his filet at the butcher's, and if he patronizes hotels and restaurants of an approved class he is equally sure that he is eating beef in his bouille and mutton in his ragoût.

Horse-meat is sold largely, and perhaps certain substitutes for rabbit, but you only buy horsemeat at a horse butcher's, so there is no deception here. You buy horse-meat as horse-meat, and not as beef, in the same way that you buy oleomargarine as oleomargarine, and not as butter, and the French law deals hardly with the fraudulent seller of either.

The law does not interfere with one's private likes and dislikes, and if you choose to make your breakfast off of oysters and Crême Chantilly – as more than one American has been known to do on the Paris boulevards – there is no law to stop you, as there is in Germany, if you want beer and fruit together. Doubtless this is a good law; it sounds reasonable; but the individual should have sense enough to be able to select a menu from non-antagonistic ingredients.

Foreigners, by which English and Americans mean people of Continental Europe, know vastly more of the art of catering to the traveller than do Anglo-Saxons. This is the first, last, and intermediate verse of the litany of good cheer. We may catch up with our Latin and Teuton brothers, or we may not. Time will tell, if we don't expire from the over-eating of pie and muffins before that time arrives.

Chapter V
The Grand Tour

The advantages of touring by automobile are many: to see the country, to travel agreeably, to be independent of railways, and to be an opportunist – that is to say to be able to fly off at a tangent of fifty or a hundred kilometres at a moment's notice, in order to take in some fête or fair, or celebration or pilgrimage.

"Le tourisme en automobile" is growing all over the world, but after all it is generally only in or near the great cities and towns that one meets an automobile on the road. They hug the great towns and their neighbouring resorts with astonishing persistency. Of the one thousand automobiles at Nice in the season it is certain that nine-tenths of the number that leave their garages during the day will be found sooner or later on the famous "Corniche," going or coming from Monte Carlo, instead of discovering new tracks for themselves in the charming background of the foot-hills of the Maritime Alps.

In England, too, the case is not so very different. There are a thousand "week-enders" in automobiles on the way to Brighton, Southsea, Bournemouth, Scarborough, or Blackpool to ten genuine tourists, and this even though England and Wales and Scotland form a snug little touring-grounds with roads nearly, if not always, excellent, and with accommodations – of a sort – always close at hand.

In Germany there seems to be more genuine touring, in proportion to the number of automobiles in use, than elsewhere. This may not prove to be wholly the case, as the author judges only from his observations made on well-worn roads.

Switzerland is either all touring, or not at all; it is difficult to decide which. At any rate most of the strangers within its frontiers are tourists, and most of the tourists are strangers, and many of them take their automobiles with them in spite of the "feeling" lately exhibited there against stranger automobilists.

Belgium and Holland, as touring-grounds for automobilists, do not figure to any extent. This is principally from the fact that they are usually, so far as foreign automobilists are concerned, included in more comprehensive itineraries. They might be known more intimately, to the profit of all who pass through them. They are distinctly countries for leisurely travel, for their areas are so restricted that the automobilist who covers two or three hundred kilometres in the day will hardly remember that he has passed through them.

Northern Italy forms very nearly as good a touring-ground as France, and the Italian engineers have so refined the automobile of native make, and have so fostered automobilism, that accommodations are everywhere good, and the tourist to-day will not lack for supplies of benzina and olio as he did a few years ago.

The bulk of the automobile traffic between France and Italy enters through the gateway of the Riviera, and, taken all in all, this is by far the easiest, and perhaps the most picturesque, of routes. Alternatives are through Gap and Cuneo, Briançon and Susa, Moutiers and Aosta, or by the Swiss passes, the latter perhaps the most romantic of routes in spite of their difficulties and other objections.

Automobiling in Spain is a thing of the future, and it will be a big undertaking to make the highroads, to say nothing of the by-roads, suitable for automobile traffic. The present monarchs' enthusiasm for the sport may be expected, however, to do wonders. The most that the average tourist into Spain by automobile will want to undertake is perhaps the run to Madrid, which is easily accomplished, or to Barcelona, which is still easier, or to just step over the border to Feuntarabia or San Sebastian, if he does not think overrefined Biarritz will answer his purpose.

More than one hardy traveller, before the age of automobiles, and even before the age of steam, has made "the grand tour," and then come home and written a book about it until there seems hardly any need that a modern traveller should attempt to set down his impressions of the craggy, castled Rhine, the splendid desolation of Pompeii, or the romantic reminders still left in old Provence to tell the story of the days of the troubadours and the "Courts of Love."

It is conceivable that one can see and enjoy all these classic splendours from an automobile, but automobilists from overseas have been known to rush across France in an attempt to break the record between some Channel port and Monte Carlo, or dash down the Rhine and into Switzerland for a few days, and so on to Rome, and ultimately Naples, where ship is taken for home in the western world.

This is, at any rate, the itinerary of many a self-made millionaire who thinks to enjoy himself between strenuous intervals of international business affairs. It is a pity he does not go slower and see more.

The real grand tour, or, as the French call it, the "Circuit Européen," may well begin at Paris, and descend through Poitou to Biarritz, along the French slope of the Pyrenees, finally skirting the Mediterranean coast by Marseilles and Monte Carlo, thence to Genoa, in Italy, and north to Milan, finally reaching Vienna. This city is generally considered the outpost of comfortable automobile touring, and rightly so, for the difficulty of getting gasoline and oil, along the route, and such small necessities as an automobile requires, continually oppresses one, and dampens his enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, the fascination of historic shrines, or the worship of art, the three chief things for which the most of us travel, unless we be mere vagabonds, and journey about for the sheer love of being on the move. From Vienna to Prague, to Breslau, to Berlin, Hanover, and Cologne, and finally to Paris via Reims finishes the "circuit," which for variety and excellence of the roads cannot elsewhere be equalled.

This, or something very near to it, would be the very best possible course for a series of reliability trials, and certainly nothing quite so suitable or enjoyable for the participants could otherwise be found. It is much better than a mere pegging away round and round a two hundred and fifty kilometre circuit, as some trials and races have been run. In all the distance is something like five thousand kilometres, which easily divides itself into stages of two hundred kilometres daily, and gives one an enjoyable twenty-five days or a month of travel, which, in all its illuminating variety, is far and away ahead of the benefits our forefathers derived from the box seat of a diligence or a post-chaise.

On this trip one runs the whole gamut of the European climate, and eats the food of Paris, of the Midi, of Italy, Austria, and Germany, and wonders why it is that he likes the last one partaken of the best. Given a faultlessly running automobile (and there are many today which can do the work under these conditions) and no tire troubles, and one could hardly improve upon the poetry of motion which enables one to eat up the long silent stretches of roadway in La Beauce or the Landes, to climb the gentle slopes skirting the Pyrenees, or the ruder ones of Northern Italy, until finally he makes that bee-line across half of Europe, from Berlin to Paris. One's impressions of places when touring en automobile are apt to be hazy; like those of the energetic American who, when asked if he had been to Rome, replied, "Why, yes; that's where I bought my panama (sic) hat!"

Such a "grand tour" as outlined by the "Circuit Européen" presents a variety which it is impossible to equal. It is a tour which embraces country widely differing in characteristics – one which takes in both the long, broad, ribbon-like roads of Central France, flanked by meadows, orchards, and farmsteads, and lofty mountains from the peaks of which other peaks capped with glistening snow may be gazed upon, sunlit valleys and sparkling lakes. It is a tour which no man could possibly make without a good machine, and yet it is a tour which, with a good machine, can be considered easy and comparatively inexpensive.

One does not require a car with excessive horsepower for the trip, though he does need a machine which has been carefully constructed and adjusted, and above all he must guard carefully that his motor does not overheat, for the hills are stiff for the most part.

When touring on an itinerary as varied as that here indicated one should have anti-skidding tires on the rear wheels, take descents with care, and, if you be the owner of a powerful machine, do not make that an excuse for rushing up the tortuous, twisting, and frightfully dangerous roads, banked by a cliff on one hand, and by a precipice on the other, which abound in all mountainous regions.

In taking turnings on such roads also always keep to the right, even if this necessitates slowing down at the bends. One never knows what is descending, and in such parts slow-moving carts drawn by cattle are numerous, and generally keep the middle of the road. Most of the automobile accidents which take place on mountain roads are due to this swishing round bends, heedless of what may be on the other side, and in allowing one's machine to gather too much speed on the long descents. This is gospel! There is both sport and pleasure to be had from such an itinerary as this, but it is a serious affair, for one has to have a lookout for many things that are unthought of in a two hours' afternoon suburban promenade. The chauffeur, be he professional or amateur, who brings his automobile back from the Circuit Européen under its own power is entitled to be called expert.

As for the value to automobilism of this great trial one can hardly overestimate it. There is no place here for the freak machine or scorching chauffeur, such as one has found in many great events of the past. A great touring contest over such a course would be bound to have important results in many ways. The ordinary class of circuit is a very close approach to a racing-track, with gasoline and tire stations established at many points of the course. On the European Circuit such advantages would be out of the question, everything would have to be taken as it exists naturally. In a sense, such a competition would be a return to the contests organized in the early days of the automobile, the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Berlin races, when the driver had ever to be on the alert for unforeseen difficulties unknown on the racing-circuit as understood in recent years.

To follow the Circuit Européen one traverses France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Belgium; and one may readily enough, if time and inclination permit, get also a glimpse of Spain, Switzerland, and Holland. Generally the automobile tourist has confined his trip to France, as properly he might, but, if he would go further afield, the European Circuit, as it has become classically known, is an itinerary vouched for as to its practicability and interest by the allied automobile and touring clubs of many lands.

France is still far in the lead in the accommodation which it offers to the automobilist, but Germany has made great strides of late, and the other frontier boundary states have naturally followed suit. Roads improvement in Germany has gone on at a wonderful rate of late, due, it is said, to the interest of the German emperor in the automobile industry, both from a sportive and a very practical side.

From Paris to the Italian frontier one finds the roads uniformly excellent; but, as one enters Italy, they deteriorate somewhat, except along the frontiers, where, curiously enough, nations seem to vie with each other in a careful maintenance of the highroads, which is, of course, laudable. This is probably due to strategic military reasons, but so long as it benefits the automobilist he will not cry out for disarmament.

The Austrian roads are fair – near Vienna and Prague they are quite good; but they are dangerous with deep ditches and gullies which the French know as canivaux, the Austrians by some unpronounceable name, and the Anglo-Saxon as "thank-you-marms." From Prague to Breslau the roads are twisting and turning, and large stones jut here and there above the actual road level. This is a real danger, a very considerable annoyance. From Breslau to Potsdam one gets as dusty a bit of road travelling as he will find in all Europe. One side of the road only is stone-rolled, the other apparently being merely loose sand, or some variety of dust which whirls up in clouds and even penetrates one's tightly closed bags and boxes. Hanover, the home of Continental tires, is surrounded in every direction with execrable cobblestones, or whatever the German equivalent is – "pflaster," the writer thinks. Probably the makers of the excellent tires for automobiles have nothing to do with the existence of this awful pavé, and perhaps if you accused them of it they would repair your tires without charge! The writer does not know.

From Hanover to Minden the roads improve, and when one actually strikes the trail of Napoleon he finds the roads better and better. Napoleon nearly broke up Europe, or saved it – the critics do not agree, but he was the greatest road-builder since the Romans.

Finally, crossing the Rhine at Cologne and passing through Belgium, one enters France by the valley of the Meuse.

One of the most remarkable tours was that undertaken in 1904 by Georges Cormier, in a tiny six horse-power De Dion Populaire. He left the Automobile Club de France in mid-October for Sens, his first stop, 101 kilometres from Paris. His route thenceforth was by Dijon, Les Rousses, and the Col de la Faucille, whence he reached Geneva, after crossing the Swiss frontier, in a torrential rain.

From Geneva he reentered France by the Pont de la Caille, then to Aiguebelle and St. Jeanne de Maurienne, where the women wear the most theatrical picturesque costumes to be seen in France.

After passing Modane and Lanslebourg he followed the ascent of Mont Cenis for ten kilometres before he reached the summit of the pass. Within three kilometres he struck the snow-line, and the falling snow continued to the summit. Here he found two douaniers and two gendarmes, who appeared glad enough to have the monotony of their lonely vigil relieved by the advent of an automobile, quite unlooked for at this season of the year.

The descent to Susa and the great plain of the Po was long and dangerous. It is sixty-two kilometres from Modane to Susa, either up-hill or down-hill, with the descent by far the longest. It is one of the most enjoyable routes between France and Italy. Once on the Italian side the whole climatic aspect of things changes. The towns are highly interesting whenever met with, and the panoramas superb, but there is a marked absence of that active life of the fields, of cattle and human labourers that one remarks in France.

From Turin the route of this energetic little car passed Plaisance, crossed the Appenines between Bologna and Florence, and so to Venice, or rather to Mestre, where the car was put in a garage while the conductor paid his respects to the Queen of the Adriatic.

From Mestre the route lay by Udine, Pontebba, Pontafel, Villac Judenburg, and Murzzuschlag, through Styria to Vienna, with the roadways continually falling off in excellence. Here are M. Cormier's own words: "Mais, par exemple, comme routes, Dieu que c'est mauvais! Malgré cela, j'y retournerai; le pays vaut la peine que l'on affronte les cailloux, les ornières, les dos d'âne at les dérapages sur le sol mouillé, comme je l'ai trop trouvé, hélas!"

Of the road from Vienna, through Moravia and Bohemia, the tourist wrote also feelingly. "May I never see those miserable countries again," he said. Things must have improved in the last two or three years, but the cause of the little De Dion's troubles was the frequent recurrence of culverts or canivaux across the road. Five hundred in one day nearly did for the little De Dion, or would have done so had not it been carefully driven.

From Prague the German frontier was crossed at Zinnwalo, a tiny hamlet well hidden on a mountain-top, beyond which is a descent of fifty kilometres to Dresden. From Dresden to Berlin the way lay over delightful forest roads, little given to traffic, and most enjoyable at any season of the year, unless there be snow upon the ground.

From Berlin the route was by Magdebourg, Hanover, Munster, and Wesel, and Holland was entered at Beek, a little village ten kilometres from Nymegen. At Nymegen the Waal was crossed by a steam ferry-boat, and at Arnhem the Rhine was passed by a bridge of boats, a surviving relic in Continental Europe still frequently to be found, as at Wesel and Dusseldorf in Germany, and even in Italy, near Ferrara on the Po.

Utrecht came next, then Amsterdam – "a little tour of Holland," as the De Dion's conductor put it. In the suburbs of the large Dutch towns, notably Utrecht, one makes his way through miles and miles of garden walls, half-hiding coquettish villas. The surface of the roads here is formed of a peculiar variety of paving that makes them beloved of automobilists, it being of small brick placed edgewise, and very agreeable to ride and drive upon.

From Utrecht the route was more or less direct to Antwerp. At the Belgian frontier acquaintance was made with that horrible granite-block road-bed, for which Belgium is notorious. After Antwerp, Brussels, then forty-five kilometres of road even worse – if possible – than that which had gone before. (The Belgian chauffeurs call that portion of the route between Brussels and Gemblout a disgrace to Belgium.) The French frontier was gained, through Namur, at Rocroi, and Paris reached, via Meaux, thirty-nine days after the capital had previously been quitted.

This was probably the most remarkable "grand tour" which had been made up to that time, and it was done with a little six horse-power car, which suffered no accidents save those that one is likely to meet with in an afternoon's promenade. The automobile itself weighed, with its baggage and accessories, practically six hundred kilos, and with its two passengers 760 kilos. The distance covered was 4,496 kilometres.