A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19964, 4 December 1926, Page 2

A WANDERER’S NOTEBOOK.

SOME ITALIAN IMPRESSIONS. XII. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Chakles Wilson, ex-Parliamentary Librarian. v The Channel is evidently too much for mar of my fellow-passengers from Folkstoi. to Boulogne, and the stewards are kept busy. We roach Boulogne in peace and board a train which is to take u,» right through to Milan. Night travelling is to me always a rather weird and dreary procue Perhaps, however, there is a temporary touch of something akin to the romantic as a sleepless traveller goes out into the corridor tor a cigarette and suddenly the car rolls into a big station where, among a crowd of baffling placards of this or that liqueur or chocolate, one spots the word Reims and remembers there here is the centre of the champagne district, and that away in the dark is that splendid cathedral which the Hun did his best —or worst—to destroy, but the facade of which, so a friendly fellow-traveller informs us, is gradually—if very gradually—assuming its old appearance. I ought, I am told, to descend here, for a couple of days, and see a famous cellar of champagne and go through one of the great woollen mills to which latter goes, I believe, some of the best and most costly New Zealand wool. But this is impossible, and soon we rumble away into the darkness, the next stop, a good 120 miles or so, being the once frontier town of Belfort, so famous at the time of the Franco-German War. SWEET-AIRED SWITZERLAND I get my first ex ' ■nee of Switzerland at Basle, whore an early and very welcome breakfast of good ' au fait—the Swiss milk is delightfully fresh and good—rolls, and a bunch of grapes comes to the weary traveller as a nice deed in a naughty world. It is a lon- lourney from Basle to Milan—from half-past 6 to not far off 4 but the experience is one ‘ bo remembered. One travels but_ a very few kilometers along the Swiss lines without being struck by the ever-increasing picturesqueness of the countrv on either side, the singular good taste of the architecture, and the equally noticeable omu'-tesent atmosphere of individual and collective industry and comfort. In comic opera, the “Merry Swiss Boy” and his lass used to affect vari-coloured costume, and were given to all too frequent “jodelling,” carrying with them a general air of having very little to do and doim> it 1 nceompaniment of much fanciful melody. From the time I cross the Swiss frontier, where, by the way, the artistic, military and official costumes at once attract the eye as agreeably as the bonhomie and courtesy of the people, not one single jodel do I hear. But at every point one notices the many evidences of well-ordered industry. There seems to I be a tremendous amount of building going on, and in my smoker a genial Swiss gentleman, on his way to Milan to attend some conference of manufacturers of artificial silk, is pleasantly informative upon the substantial industrial advance of Helvetia since that, to others, most dreadful war, which, to the little neutral State, must have proved gi perfect God-send financially. SWISS PROSPERITY. A convincing object lesson ae to the soundness of the Swiss position to-day is afforded when at a convenient Bureau de Change at one of the railway stations we change a Treasury note into Swiss francs. In France and Italy the rate of exchange is a subject of individual and national lamentation. In Switzerland the British pound note is worth just a few centimes short of its value in Threadneedle street. An article marked five francs in a Swiss shop window costs, one finds, a fraction over four shillings and twopnece, whereas in France its value to the travelling Briton is but a sixth of that sum. In Italy the position is not quite so bad, and if Mussolini, of whom more, a good deal more, anon, can do all he promises to do, it is soon to be quite noticeably better. But in Switzerland, as I had already found it in Holland, the English pound is worth not a farthing over 20 shillings. Later on, when, after short sojourns in Rome, Florence, and Venice, we return to Switzerland, at Montreux and Geneva, I am to hear much as to the causes of Swiss prosperity. The ever augmenting volume of hydro-electric power A having a striking effect upon industry. The Swiss are harnessing their fast-flowing streams and replacing on every side steam-driven by electrically-powered machinery. What I see, both in Switzerland and Italy, of the possibilities before electric power makes me agreeably hopeful of New Zealand's industrial future. But this is far too big a subject upon which to attempt giving details. BASLE TO MILAN. The railway journey from Basle to Milan provides a series of ever-changing views of a positively bewildering picturesqueness. From what I am told, this, the St. Gothard tunnel route, is easily the finest in point of scenery. Be this as it may, I bear testimony to the com polling charm of the wonderful piece of railway engineering which provides a steel highway through the St. Gothard tunnel on to the northern plain of Lombardy. The Swiss and the Italians have always been famous as tunnel makers. At one point the ingenuity which has been responsible for the turning and twisting of the steel highway recalls memories of the Raurimu Spiral on the North Island Main Trunk linef Tunnel succeeds tunnel as we travel southward, through beautiful Bellinzona to the charmingly-situated Lugano. Here and further southward, at Como, the carriages emptied as if by magic, for three-fourths of the many English passengers stop at one or other of these enchanting lake towns. Even whilst dreaming of the coming glories of Milan and Rome it is with a pang of regret that we witness the thinning out of the passenger list. But needs must where the tour programme laid down at London drives, and late in the afternoon the long, long journey which had begun the previous day at Boulogne comes to an end, and a small party of dusty wayfarers mounts, with enthusiasm, the hotel omnibus, which leads to a bath and change, preliminary to sauntering around in Italy’s second city in point of population, and easily the first in industrial and commercial importance—the one thing which, really counts with the present-dav Italian. There was a time, maybe, when the Italian thought first of his country’s great history, its supremacy as the special home of European art, of the glory of a United Italy, an Italy freed from the domination of the hated Austrian in the north and of the disturbing influence of ecclesiastical power in the Roman States. Later on, too, came dreams of African and other oversea enterprise; but to-day, after a terrible purgation as the result of the war, Italy is, it is easy to see, first and foremost concerned with “making good” as speedily as possible as an industrial and commercial power. MILAN’S TWO M/ 'ELS. It is the curse of what I may call “touristry” to have to be for ever hurrying onwards. This afternoon I must fain refuse the kind offers of a travelling friend to show me round one of Milan’s "reat silk factories, whence come. I believe, a very substantial proportion of those elegant silk stockings with which modern femininity delights to adorn itself. I am afraid, too, that my honestly confessed igorance of the •extent and importance of Italy’s motor industry and my evident preference to see the cathedral and the great Galleria Vittoria Emanuel —otherwise the Victor Emanuel Arcade, the largest structure of , its kind in Europe—not a little astonishes ! and, perhaps—who knows?—even disgusts ; the courteous offer of a second industrial inspector. But to arrive in Milan and not to proceed alomr to visit its wonderful j cathedral would be akin to dipping into ] Stratford-on-Avon and not hastening off j to Shakespeare’s house. Milan’s seven 1 hundred thousand people may be prouder to-day of their citv being the “capital of j Italian progress,” the seat of silk and motor ! manufactures, "n'urnnssed in size and im portance in Europe. A POEM - STONE. But for me my first interest lies in the i famed Duorno, which an American lady 1 in the party fantastically but not untruthfully, styles a poem in atone. When cathedrals are under discussion I never fail, as a good Yorkshire an, to champion the impressive and rather austere beautv of York’s great Gothic structure. And even ffter seeing St. Peter’s, and the Duomo with its graceful giotto designed campanile at Florence and the fascinating Byzantine mosaic wonders of San Marco

at Venice 1 stil] remain faithful to the grand old building by the Duse. Milan, however, is fully deserving of its comparison to a piece of exquisite lace. Exactly how many beautiful statues—they are hero by hundreds, even upon the roof and sides—the cathedral possesses I cannot say. But as I walk round its lovely interior with that peculiar feeling of subdued reverence which must come over anyone who sees those exquisite buildings for the first time, and as after dinner, I view anew, in the pale silver sheen of a mellow moonlight, its many sculptured glories, a brain picture is created which I doubt not must be indestructible so long as memory remains with me. As I have said, Milan’s second wonder, quite a modern thing, is the wonderful Galleria, or Arcade, whose name commemorates the most momentous achievement in nineteenth century Italian history. Who buys all the beautiful and costly things in the Galleria I cannot say, but the rents are, I am told, as enormous as they are in London’s Bond street, or that Rue la Pais in Paris, to which 1 believe every good American millionaire’s wife first commands her obed : -nt hubby to conduct her. AVANTI TO ROMA. “Avanti,” forward, to Roma, as the Italians style the rsternal City. Personally I stand by tJohn Bull’s spelling, and shall write “Milan" rather than Milano, Florence for Firenze, Rome for Roma, and Venice for Venezia. Every now and then, in Italy, as in other European countries, I meet British and American tourists who correct me when 1 ignore the local names, but to me this is but a silly affectation. Anyhow on this already frightfully hot morning as our train rumbles and rattles away southward, I care little as to cor rect or incorrect information of place name? To travel through new country is alwayr interesting, and the monontony of the long journey, from 7 a.m. to close pon 8 at night is rarely apparent. If only the smoke nuisance were not so bad 1 Mussolini, the\ say. has worked marvels in the railway ad ministration. Some 20,000 odd officilas, oor devils, have been “scrap-heaped” merci lessly, but although there is here no dole or unemployment pay, 1 suppose many must have been hit rather hard by the “regime of economy.” But the trains run. if slowly enough, to time, whereas in the pre-Mussolini days, to be n u hour late was quite a common occurrence, and the Carriages are fairly clean. Second class, by the way, is good enough for anybody, but I would as soon go to gaol as be packed, as so many have to be, in the straight-backed, uncu ihioned “thirds.’’ The one, and quite fori lidable, fly in the traveller’s ointment is the foul smoke. The Italian railways burn brkruettes made, 1 believe, of compressed coal dust with some variety of petrol to stick it together Never out of Sheol itself could there result so utterly villainous a sulphurous smoke. The stink - “smell” is more euphonious. but much less truthful —is as bad as that of Tikitere. and, after a few miles, hands and face resemble those of the old-time chimney sweep. All morning we traverse a vast plain not one acre of which seems waste land. Here is a rich soil, cultivated, every inch of it by a hard-working folk. Miles upon miles of vines, of olives, oi fruit trees, are passed. THE SAUSAGE CITY. Through Pavia, Piacenza, and Parma, all towns which seem to have modern factories jostling their ancient buildings, we pass southwards to Bologna, famous for its colonnated streets—and its sausages. They serve a very good lunch on the train, and, perhaps, in local honour, for we have just passed the Sausage City, the hors d’oeuvres with which the meal commences include the favourite sausage, along with the olives, sardines, hard-boiled egg. beetroot, and odds and ends generally which precede the, second and ever-present dish of macaroni in one of its score or so forms. Later on, we draw up at Florence, crossing the Arno, historically famous, no doubt, hut to-day a muddy ditch-like stream, and discuss what we are to see of Dante’s city when wo revisit it later. Rome is calling now as we pass through long valleys with queer old villages high up on the hillsides, and passing through a once malaria-haunted belt we draw up, dusty, dirty, and not a little weary, in a big railway station and make our way to a very welcome hotel. It is a great trip, but next time I am down this way I shall take it in smallej- doses. The previous articles of this scries appeared in our issues of August 28. September 4, September 11. September 18, October 2. October 23, October 30. November 6. November 13, November 20. November 27.