A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 82, 31 December 1926, Page 22

A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK

(BY

CHARLES WILSON)

No. IG.

"Well supplied with cigars and othci necessaries ol life, we took the cars for Milan.” So, or in words to that effect, wrote Mark Twain in his "Innocents Abroad,” to many of us still the best of Mr Clemens’s many books Mark was evidently in happy mood that day, but 1 confess that it is with a feeling “f something akin to sadness that we cross at an earlv bout of the morning the long bridge—of 2'2'2 arches, no fewer—across the main Yenetjan Lagoon and leave that quaintly beautiful city on the which is “so different” from all ’ ether European centres. But “Avanti. avanti," "Forward, forward,” must be'as much the tourist’s slogan as it Ts, J am told, that of the much—

though ever, in Italy, most discreetly, even timorously—discussed Mussolini, the Puce of Fasciti worship, for the weeks slip away all too quickly, apd the date of departure of a certain Crjnard ateamgr for New York, en route to far aWy New Zealand, is ever foremost in my mind. Padua is our first stop, Padua of the famous university where Galileo taught physics, and where I-Jarvey, the great English surgeon, took a degree, Padua, which was the birthplace of the historian, Livy, accursed pf so many schoolboys, the Livy of whose famous work an exce'llept translation has' recently, I read, appeared in Messrs, Dents’ bandy and most useful "Everyman’s Library," Padua has its artistic bl.sforv also, for here Ponatello. • whose delightful ' children's heads we so admired at Florence, wrought some of Ip’s finest sculpture and Mantegna painted and etched- Padova La Lotta, Padua the Learned, as the Italians call it, should be visited by every, tourist; indeed, it is an open question in my mind whether the stranger from a far land would not find greater d.elmht IP ratnblinj? about tbf* sinaljef dbrs of

Italy tfiap in sojourning long in Hie large; yentres especially favoured by the toprjst firms which arrange the itineraries of so nianv travellers. Vipepza and VcrunaBut at neither Padua, nor pt Vicenza, nor again at Verona, is it fated we may stop, though, judging by the views from onr carriage windows .eastern Venetia lias an exceptionally prettv country side and the succulent green figs and the giant chewies which are hawked about the railway station plat’ forms bear eloquent testimony to the fruitfulness of the land, At Vicenza n motor-bus tout, who tells me he spent “telina yeara in Newark, New Jersey, America," makes a vain attempt to induce me to stop over and visit Schio, and Asiago to the north, at which place a British Armv Corns, the Sixteenth, put up a determined,* and in the long run successful, resistance to what in the old rhvme would have been called "al! Austrian nrmv .wfttllv arrayed,” leaving, poor lads, enough of their number dead on the field tn DU no fewer than five cemeteries. Says ilie bus tout: "Tt

was a vurra blood-ee, a turble blood-ee fight, save." No doubt John Bull ami Sons put in some very strenuous work jn helping Italy to protect Hie Trentino and Venetia, although I fear that the Italians of to-day are none too grateful,

Juliet's Tomb, At Verona 1 gaze out at a very beautiful citv, in which the chief sight for tiie English an>l American tourist is a modern cloister of Hie Trinity, where there is a fourteenth century tomb, alleged to be tiie last earthly resting place of Hie unfortunate beauty who was tiie heroine of Shakespeare's famous drama "Romeo and Juliet." Aias, it is to be fear ed that the visitor "weeps,’’ as the Yankee said, "over Hie wrong gray?.” Fpt Mr. Mtiirliead, in hjs "Blue Guide to Italy," long, alas, mislaid, and only

turning up when I am well over the Italian border, is irreverent enough to question whether the whole story ol the Montague and Capulet feud be uot apocryphal. The Bard, of Avon is said to have “bagged” the story from a sixteenth century novelist, one Luigi La Porta. "However this may be,” adds the sceptical Mr. Muirhead, "it is certain that the present tomb is not that of Juliet.” Nevertheless, I have up doubt that hundreds upon hundreds of American tourists will continue to put in a day or two at Verona and gape at and kodak poor Juliet’s tomb, just as religiously as they accept that oft-exposed fraud, the so-called Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop

in Loudon town. And as long as they are guileless and happy, what, after v all, does it matter whether they are weeping over the right or the wrong grave? At bustling Milan, to which, outside the marvellous Cathedral, rather uninteresting city, I have already made allusion in an earlier letter, and where we witness the departure for Genoa, en route to the Argentine, ’of a trainload of Italian emigrants, we have a long wait, and then, ophe again, move westward towards the Simplop tunnel, and Switzerland,

"The Complete Tourist’s Guide.” After leaving Milan we run through an industrial area, and the oompara, five tepidity of th? landscape attrac' tidns drives me to seek amusement in a copy of a somewhat curious .publication, “The Complete Tourists Guide," which I pick up at the Milan railwav bookstall and winch, being printed in alleged English, seems promining, especially after my futile attempts to puzzle out tjie meaning of Mussolini's latest speech as reported jp the Italian papers left op the seat

bv a departing fellow traveller. The compiler of the "Complete Tourist’s Guide" overflows with patriotic pride. Not even the editor of one of those flamboyant “folders" which ere , circulated so freely by the American railroad companies cap excel him in enthusiasm over the scenic glories of his native land. He tells me to begin with that “Italy is the native soil of everv human being,” there being, he assures us, “no need to prove the truth of the aphorism-." I share, J admit, his enthusiasm over the attractions of "Venice, that fair city which proudly queens it over the Adriatic,” and in a modified degree those of "Milan, the noisy town of work and industry." But I find it rather difficult to get at the exact meaning of "Italy, Italy. Even’- tourist entering it discovers everywhere something of his own soul and finds a parcel of his very soul," I read tips out aloud, and a fellow tourist comments sarcastically upon his own inability to find a "parcel," if not of his "own soul," at least of his laundry which had mysteriously dis-

appeared from his bedroom at Venice. What a materialist man the average British tourist can be I . Hie compdter s manner of expression is aa curiously unEnglish in his reference to ins company's "competatent luxury tours in France " as it is when he enlarges upon °the exquisite superbities of Ravenna, where, “on any. band the visitor mav revel in memories of the great Milord Biron” (the author of "Don Juan is no doubt intended). When, l.oweyer lie waxes eloquent over free stays at Nice and Biarritz, at the first of which places a personal memory of a swollen hotel bill is not unmixedly pleasant, I wonder how he construes the adjective free, and nlfhon'qb I can. accept his de(tuition of Marseilles as "A firs commerciales ports of France, I find it difficult to think of it as a ‘ plesant sea resort reputated for It? badtng.

Fur, as one New Zealander cap recall, niduy pt the Mai’beilluie sveuieu quite unmistakably in sore need ol a uip—plus a liberal soaping. Soap is, 1 believe, a staple product uf Marseilles, but only a impute proportion can be used lor local consumption.

Ou Turaugh the Simplon. Perusal pf "Tlie complete tourist s Guide” passes away the time agreeably enough until the lactones, growing fewer and fewer, we pass through some lovely' lakeside country along the picturesque southern shores ol lake Maggiore, and stopping awhile ut the muci, frequented, tourist resort of Stresa, where Sadie and Mamie, with their Poppas and Mommers, are in great force on the railwav platform, skirt the lovely lake and pass' the famous Borromean Islets, surelv the most picturesquely situated islets In the world. Earth has sure’y no more beautiful sight to give than these lovely islands as they lay bathed in mellow summer light like veritable gems swimming in the exquisitely blue waters of Maggiore. It is good'to learn from a stout and most genial Italian priest, for the last hour or so, good man, absorbed in his breviary, of the wonderful achievements away back in the seventeenth century of the Counts Borromeo, who turned Isola Bella and the other islets from masses of barren rock into ■ scenes of unsurpassable beauty, bringing soil from the mainland, building terraces out on piles in the lake, and planting choice subtropical and exotic shrubs everywhere. The good padre’s English is as scanty as Ben Jonson’s Greek and Latin, but like most educated Italians he speaks excellent French and in that convenient language of the Gauls, which is ever the passport to inter-racial conversation wherever one may travel on the Continent we have a long and interesting chat until, as the daylight begins to fade, the sjpwly mounting train lands us at the prettily named little town of Doniodossola, not far from the entrance to the great Simplon tunnel, through which we are to pass into Switzerland. High mountains shadow the line, and along the valley runs a rocky water course which a few days after our visit, is to be converted into a raging torrent which sweeps away bridges and roads, the Ijne being blocked by pn avalanche the mischief wrought by which is the subject later on of several quite sensational cables. A long dry summer is still in force ag we work up the picturesque Vai d’Ossola, and after what seems to be an intolerably long spell of weird seclusion in that tunnel, which is still one of the most famous of Europe’s engineering triumphs, emerge to go through the customs at the Swiss frontier post of Briga. The Swiss douanier is now ever a courteous, if a rather starchy fellow, and although some of our Italian pashave to submit to a rigid examination of their baggage, and a meticulous inspection of their papers we Anglo-Saxons, being deemed, I suppose, to eschew the carrying of revolvers and bombs as keenly as a pertain personage is alleged to eschew holy water, we are passed through the gateways with commendable speed and lack of annoyance, and jt is not long before we are well pn the way to Montreux at the eastern end of that sheet of water which is correctly called Lake Leman, but which is so much better known as Lake Geneva. It has been a terribly long journey from the Venetian lagoons, but thanks to the ever-varying and special charm of the landscape a traiect free from even the suspicion of tedium. In a Pleasant Land.

If ever it falls to my lot to make anOther trip to Europe/ I shall certainly 1 find time, no matter what other feature is cut out, to spend a few weeks in Switzerland, The scenery is so fine, the people so genial, and, above all, the visitor is made so comfortable. Tn the hotels, on the trains, and. indeed, wherever he may go. I shall never forget niv first night in Switzerland, where, after a long journey from Venice, we find ourselves esconced in one of the most comfortable hostelries it has been mv good fortune to patronise—the Chateau Belmont, at Montreux. Outside our room we look down a hillside as steep as that at Kelburn in my home town of Wellington, from a balcony the view from which is simply gorgeous. To the left is a superb mountain range, the Dents du Midi, already clothed well down with snow. Across the waters of the lake one can distinguish the storied towers of that Castle of Chillon made famous in Byron’s poem, and away to the right stretch lines of splendid hotels backed bv fine forest growth. At night, with the sparkling lights right and left, the scene is positively an earthly fairyland. .

Round Lake Geneva. In the morning me take a char-a-banc tour right round the lake, and I fail to recall a more delightful drive. After an all too brief call at the Castle of .Chilion, we run alonj- the southern shore of the lake, passing at one point into French territory, and being at once struck by the comparative slovenliness of the little Gallic towns as compared with the almost intense orderliness of the Swiss villages on the lake b At Evian les Bains, a fashionable watering-place, where the new rich are not a little in evidence at the Casino, we spend a pleasant hour or so and then push along to Geneva, than which few European cities have of late years been better advertised, and which enjoys what is surely one of the most picturesque "locations," as our American friends would say, which any town could be blessed with, At Geneva we visit a small multiplicity of sights, but are unfortunate to be there on a day when the League of Nations Permanent Council is en retraite, or having a spell of idleness, Geneva, they tell me, has benefited enormously by the League. Hundreds upon hundreds of well-paid officials are stationed there, and outside several of tiie Hotels fly gay flags to testify to, the presence of various foreign big-wigs. Whatever may be. Hie actual practical benefit* to the world which may result from the activities of the League, it is certain that the Genevese make a mightily good thing out of its establishment. Salaries are very high, and, to judge by the scornful references made to the officials bv our guide, it is quite clear that the Swiss people outside tiie favoured city consider that Geneva is on a very good wicket so far as material profit is concerned. I m’ake a point of eschewing politics in these letters, but it seems to me a very open question whether the League has not been responsible foi the creation of a sadly over-swollen and fatlypaid bureaucracy, whose labours, save the mark, are but little real practical benefit to the taxpayers of the various countries which pay the piper. From Geneva, , after enjoying a lunch which makes most of us wax enthusiastic over the succulence and general excellence of Helvetian cookery—if not over Geneva’s hotel prices—our car takes us back to pretty little Montreux, through Oiichy, Lausanne, and Vevey, and a sadlv inadequate experience of Switzerland ends as the train carries us off next morning to Paris. No wonder the English tourist flocks to Switzerland. It is so easy and so cheap to get there; tiie sights are conveniently grouped, and the first care of the Swiss hotelkeeper seems to' be to please, and so ensure future patronage from his guests. New Zealand has not a Ijttle to learn from Switzerland.