Wintering in the Riviera

er a period of five hundred or even of one hundred years hence, how strangely new to him everything would appear! Events succeed each other i

sibly foresee the actual consequences and the condition of things to which they will lead. In the future there is so much dependent on occurrences which appear to us to be fortuitous (though truly under the guidance of Supreme Wisdom), that we can only feel that over all there hangs an impenetrable veil of mysterious darkness. A single unexpected event may turn aside the policy of an age, or even alter the divisions of the world. A single man by a foolish blunder may plunge nations into protracted war. A single happy discovery, a single clever invention, may affect the fortunes or alter the habits of a whole people. A single c

n of wealth, as the completion of their education, to take, with a tutor, a courier, and a sufficient retinue, the grand tour of Europe, the limit of which was usually, though not always, Constantinople. I suppose this circumstance has given rise to the Continental idea, which at least formerly prevailed, that every Englishman was a milord Anglais, and to its practical consequence, from which present travellers continue to suffer-the cust

east, been realized; for the railway train abroad bears about the same proportion in point of speed to the English train as the clumsy diligence did of old to our high-flyers and our ten-mile-an-hour stage-coaches.[2] Sometimes, indeed, people in former times, who were able to do so, travelled on the Continent in pursuit of health; and a very interesting account of a tour of this description, made to a large extent over the same ground as that which forms the subject of description in the following pages, is contained in The Diary of an Invalid, by Henry Matthew, A.M., made during a journey, performed in the years 1817-18-19, through Italy, Switzerland, and France, from which an idea of the difference of travelling in those days-sixty years ago-from what it is now, may to some extent be gathered. Since the introduction of railways, which now form a c

ging wet, foggy, and chilly winter quarters at home for pleasant sunny places abroad. So much is this the case, that whole colonies of English people, many of them owning houses, built or bought for their residence, are found scattered over the Continent, particularly on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. They go to winter there, and the places they frequent become remarkably English in their habits a

e tours of pleasure. The countries visited by us on this occasion were France, Italy, and Switzerland; and it is with special reference to them that the remarks offered in this and the succeeding introductory chapters apply. I propose in this chapter to deal s

y elderly persons, the want of knowledge of the language of the country to which

languages, and usually with at least French, English, and German, and has to reply to questions in these different languages almost in the same breath. In frontier places, his acquaintance is extended to the language of the neighbouring country-it may be, for instance, Italian or Spanish. However, among employees and others with whom the traveller has to do, the knowledge of many languages is not confined to the gens portier. At Mentone I was informed that a hairdresser there could speak five languages; and how else could he hope, from a hairdresser's point of view, to please his patients? At Rome, having gone to the wrong shop, I had to experience the difficulties of undergoing an operation by a gentleman of the fraternity who could speak nothing but Italian; and we should never have succeeded in coming to a mutual understanding, but for the kindly intervention of a priest who was being shaved and could speak French, and after all it did not wholly save me from that 'croppiness' in which the foreign coiffeur delights. This linguistic faculty does not stop at hairdressers, who may be considered to be men of an advanced race. At Mentone we used to employ a donkey girl, who also could speak a little in five languages. Philippina was a bright, intelligent girl, much liked by her employers, and no doubt she found her advantage in knowing something of their different tongues. In Switzerland, for the most part, the German language prevails, and it is occasionally uncommonly hard, if one is not a

d lying at my feet), and did not know what would happen, but the man in collecting passports from the passengers fortunately overlooked me. This was a species of the rarest good luck, upon which of course it was utterly impossible to reckon; and the passport system was one which was felt by people living in a land in which every one is free, without inquiry of any kind, to travel where and when he pleases, to be an intolerable annoyance. It is still maintained; but with a view, I presume, not to discourage English travelling (a source of immense profit to the natives), a British subject has only on passing a frontier to declare his nationality, and he is at once passed through, except at some places where he is asked for his carte-de-visite; and if he have not one at hand, even this is not insisted on if it be apparent that he is what he represents himself to be,

srs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson, yet travellers do meet with evidences of the existence of a secret and prying police. At Aix-les-Bains, which, however, may be regarded as a frontier town, we found the register of visitors kept in a book furnished by the p

r things to be attended to in orde

iron castors, are often thrown or deposited remorselessly on the top of smaller and weaker packages. Very small articles, indeed, should never be put in the vans. It is better, and in the long run cheaper, to have fewer packages and of a larger size. At the same time, they are very inconvenient if unwieldily large, as too often one sees them to be, requiring two men for their carriage, and needing to be left outside the bedroom-an inconvenience both to the traveller herself and her fellow-travellers; for it is the ladies who are in this respect the great transgressors. Some ladies seem to travel with the

have not made it a rule in all travelling to use his own soap, he is charged at foreign hotels 1 franc for savon. I have heard a man growling over the

ith a quart tin bottle, to be had from Atkins and Co., 62 Fleet Street, London, occupies little space, and costs 8s. Were Messrs. Atkins to devise a portable little filter for use at the table by insertion in a tumbler, so as to purify the drinking water without the fuss of a large filter, which it is inconvenient to carry, and which one cannot bring to the public room, it would be of much use. It must be born

always be placed upon the accuracy of its railway and other time-tables and its tariffs. On arriving in a country, it is especially necessary to secure, in addition, one of its latest official railway guides. In France there is published once a week, on the Sundays, L'Indicateur des Chemins de fer et de la Navigation service officielle. This costs 60 centimes (6d.), and is a long folio of inconvenient size. As nearly all French travellers purchase a copy when they start on a journey, it doubtless obtains a large sale. The Livret Chaix Spécial pour France (there is another edition for Europe generally) is an official guide of a more convenient size. It is published once a month, book shape duodecimo, costs 1 franc, and has no advertisements, which are scattered through the Indicateur

re so few, compared with those of France, that there is no insuperable difficulty in discovering the time-bills of particular railways. The Italian Indicatore cont

nch weekly one; and in both countries smaller and cheaper d

ently twice a year-at least those procured in the Swiss travelling

er season, or about 15th or 16th October, and in the beginning of the summer or spring season. By not observing a change of

di Ponente, in which Cannes and Mentone are, and the journey thither from Paris, and towns on the way, such as Lyons, Avignon, Nismes, and Marseilles, while southward it extends as far as Florence. Murray's Guide-Books are very useful, and are much more full and detailed, but consequently are more bulky, and are therefore more suitable for protracted visits to a town such as Venice. Neither B?deker nor Murray, however, are to be wholly relied upon, especially for th

ng the importance to the traveller of having the latest information, and

ormat, which are of a larger size. Each class (published only in French) contains a series of volumes applicable to the different parts of France, as well as volumes

books for the countries to which his tours apply; and that recently Black

us, as adding to the quantity of books with which we had to travel. It is a little heavy to carry about in the hand, but it direct

its recommendations of hotels,-a circumstance which probably arises from the notice of given hotels having been written years previously, and means not having been used to obtain a complete revision from year to year. More reliance in this respect is to be placed on B?deker's Guide-Books. Hotels marked by B?deker with an * will almost always be found of a good character. In the absence of other means of intelligence, we have sometimes been driven, like many others, to ask information from chance fellow-travellers, at other times to get it at the hotel from which we started in the morning-not infrequently the less trustworthy method of

of all the banks with which he corresponds, embracing almost every place which may be visited in Europe. This letter, for security's sake, it is advisable to keep in a different pocket or box from the circular notes, which require his signature and endorsement. The banker's correspondents ought not to cash the notes without production of this letter of indication; but sometimes they are negligent or lax in this respect, particularly if the presenter appear to be respectable or a bona fide traveller. At some places, however, such as at Paris, the bankers are more cautious, and not only invariably ask for the letter, but they put sundry questions and take the hotel address-the object being, quite properly, in a quiet way to make sure that the notes are presented b

registration. Eighteen months later, however, I found in Paris, oddly enough, that Bank of England notes were at a premium, while circular notes were at a discount. At Cannes, in 1877, I had occasion to cash a bank draft on London received from one of the colonies, and found that nominally the allowance was greater than upon circular notes; but as the banker charged a commission, it practically reduced the exchange to about the same amount. Another notable circumstance was, that while at Mentone the bankers would give nothing beyond the 25 francs, at the neighbouring town of Nice the bankers always gave exchange varying from 75 centimes to 1 franc per ￡10. At Pau I found that while the correspondent of the bank only gave ? franc per ￡10, another banker gave 1 franc, and upon an exchange of ￡50 even a shade more. Again, at Mo

been engaged in commerce or in banking to understand why these fluctuations occur, or to be acquainted with the causes which influence them. The current value is said to be dependent upon the position of the commercial relations between Great Britain and the Continent; but there are obviously other circumstances, such as national credit, political disturbances, war, and the abundance or scarcity of money, which affect or bias the barometer. But whatever may be the cause, the traveller obtains the benefit of the effect when the exchange is high, as his money goes so much further. The Italian pape

small change even for half a napoleon. For a napoleon (20 francs) one is fortunate to get, as a favour from a bank, four large 5 franc pieces, the banker saying that he has no smaller change, which perhaps only means he cannot spare his lesser money. This state of matters, I believe, arises from the scarcity of silver money in France, produced by the people hoarding up their savings, which are thus withdrawn from circulation. In Italy (where apparently the same hoarding must take place, though probably not so

alues; but after getting habituated to them, a preference arises for their use over metal money, w

weather: I have been nine hours in a storm. Folkestone to Boulogne, ordinarily two hours, although one fast boat (by which our last crossing was made) accomplishes the passage in an hour and a half. Dover to Calais, one hour forty minutes; but in a storm I have known it to have taken four hours. As an inducement to travel by the longer crossings, the fares are proportionately lower. Fares by night service trains are considerably less than those by day trains. The routes by Newhaven and Folkestone are tidal, and the hours of sailing vary according to the state of the tide, which is troublesome, and infers to most people, when the boats sail at an early hour, sleeping at the port of departure, which we repeatedly have had

and his arrangements seem to be on an equally extensive scale. Both houses have agencies in the leading towns of Great Britain, as well as in several of the principal European cities. Their success is evidence of their utility, and there can be no doubt that the facilities afforded by them have greatly increased the number of Continental travelle

ces book, he receives a separate packet of tickets, which is exceedingly useful to him, as, besides saving the trouble of purchasing at the Paris railway station, he is enabled on starting from Paris to register his heavy luggage to any part of his destination for which there is a coupon, and that even at every such place. For example, going from Paris to Nice, the luggage may be registered to Nice; and taking sufficient in the carriage for the journey, in a sac-de-nuit, one may stop or break his journey at D

sary to be said, even French, or a mere acquaintance with the numerals, being generally sufficient. Personally I never experienced any difficulty whatever in taking out the tickets at the foreign railway stations, and indeed the only difficulty I remember to have had was, because I had Cook's tickets. Conceiving there might, on a first visit, be trouble, I had at Nice taken tickets from Genoa to Rome, bearing a right to make three intermediate stoppages. Having, in perfect accordance with the conditions, stopped at Spezzia, Pisa, and Sienna, I could hardly, on leaving Sienna, get the tickets marked for Rome. They were refused at the ticket window, and doubted by the chef-de-gare; and it was only upon my emphatic remonstrance, and his appealing to somebody else on the platform, that I succeeded in getting them sta

west coast, embracing Florence and Rome to Naples, and thence by the east coast by Ancona, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and back to Turin, at a cost for first class of ￡7, 17s., and second and third classes correspondingly low. This tour, for which sixty days are allowed, enables the traveller to stop at any important town on the lines; and all that is necessary is, at starting from each place, to get the next station at which he means to stop scored through at the railway window. To those whose time is limited, these circular tickets are valuable,

is to Bordeaux, Biarritz, the Pyrenees and back. Information on the subject ma

al abroad, and issued upon terms far more liberal than any granted by our English lines.' Although I have on various

d by a side line. Thus, in going from Lyons to Marseilles, we obtained supplementary tickets from Tarascon to Nismes by asking for them when stopping

any place to a higher class by paying difference of fare betwe

e you any cigars?' and the word of an Englishman that he has none is ordinarily taken. If there be several boxes, the officer points to one of them, and desires it to be opened, sometimes merely to be closed again. At other times the man will provokingly put his hand down to the very depths, and perhaps bring up something hard or a parcel, and fancy he has made a discovery. But he is easily satisfied, and things are restored in the best way possible for a tight fit. No examination of luggage seems to be made on entering Switzerland from any frontier country, indicating that the Swiss have no custom-house duties; but on leaving Switzerland and entering France, there is a more minute examination than occurs when coming from Englan

gh the railways adopt the time of their respective capitals, every different town has, according to its longitude, its own, or what is held to be the correct time at the place according to the sun. This proves most embarrassing, more especially as the hotels regulate their hours by the clock of their own town when that exists. If not, there is the utmost perplexity in finding out what the correct time is. At Mentone no two clocks were al

rly in use in Italy, by counting twenty-four hours for the

me particulars from those to which we are accustomed, and as this introductory chapter is mainly intended fo

at least approximately calculated from the time-tables; but the exact price of tickets may usually be obtained from a board or table of fares near the ticket window, often most inconveniently placed and arranged, and so dirty and soiled as occasionally to be illegible. Without a previous knowledge of the probable cost, it is exceedingly difficult for a stranger to make out what the man says, owing to the narrowness of the aperture and the indistinctness of French pronunciation. In many places, particularly in Italy, an official is stationed (a most commendable practice) outside the window, to prevent inconvenient crowding, to tell the fares, to see that the correct billets are supplied, and to be a check on the ticket distributor giving the right change. I have been told of cases

r his luggage, and for which he has in any case to pay 10 centimes (1d.) in addition to any charge for extra weight. This receipt bears the number of colis or packages and of persons, the united weight of the party's luggage, the sum payable, the place of despatch and the place of destination, and a printed number; which number is also affixed to each article so registered, and is the means by which, on arriving at the journey's end, it is identified. What is the exact method by which the officials in charge manage to secure that all the multiform boxes and bags arrive at their respective proper destinations, I do not know. I presume that, in addition to an invoice or list of some kind accompanying the train, the things for each station are separately stowed away in the waggons; but

the railway billets. The expense is not, however, great, unless one's luggage be heavy. Our luggage, which perhaps was less than many travel with, cost me, travellin

r, at the journey's end a great detention is always occasioned. All have to wait till the vans are emptied, and the contents dragged about and arranged upon long tables in a closed room. When the entire collection is adjusted as far as possible according to the numbers affixed, the doors of this room are opened, after having had to wait wearily perhaps half an hour. It is, however, by no means necessary to attend personally, except where the luggage must be passed through the douane, and sometimes the hotel omnibus will take home the pass

e sail of about 10 miles on Lake Como, I had to pay 2? francs for luggage. In diligences in Switzerlan

agerie and shouts out, 'Messieurs les voyageurs, pour (naming the places) en voiture!' It may happen that there are several such shouts for other trains before your own is announced, and your sudden preparations for departure are stopped by the discovery that your turn has not yet come, and you are not allowed to leave the place of confinement. When your turn does come, you gather up your things, which no porter helps you to carry, and rush pell-mell out with the crowd. There is no servant to tell you where to go, and your only security not to do wrong is to follow the multitude. When you reach the carriages, it is seldom they have any board or placard indicating their destination. If there should by any chance be an official about, he is not there for the purpose of directing people; and if you ask him, he gives about as slender information in answer as possible. It is folly, however, to stop to ask him in the first instance. The plan is, trudging on with wraps and bags and all the little things, to bundle into the first open carriage where there appears to be sufficient room, and secure seats as best you can, and then get out and make inquiries for certainty's sake. If you do not do so, and a lady, to recover breath, halts an instant with foot on step before ascending, others will coolly mount before her and take possession, and there may be the utmost possible difficulty in procuring seat-room elsewhere, foreigners being just as selfishly guilty as English people of telling lies about a ca

leaving the salle-d'attente in the rush for the train, porters are nowhere, and on arrival of the trains at their destination, it is by the merest chance (at least in France) one can be got to carry the unregistered articles-the number of which is aggravated by the circumstance that it seems to be part of the system of registration, that if luggage be forwarded to a station in advance of that at which stoppage is to be made for the night or longer, it is not possible to register separately to the stop

e size of each. It is, however, a comfort to know in Italy, if you can, what exactly there is to pay; but although appeal has often been made to the tariff if it happened to be high, I never was gladdened with a sight of this mysterious document. I should make one exception, for the extortion was so great that I demanded to see it, though, as I might

gne; a charge, I think, of 2d. for each package was made at the railway station for porterage, and th

robably after proceeding a long way on the journey; and when the train is in full motion, nervous passengers are suddenly alarmed by seeing a man creeping along the outside of the carriage and popping his head in at the window, or opening the door to see the billets, which are seldom examined before starting. He silently gives the tickets a clip, and disappears, perhaps to reappea

tween first and second consists in the number of passengers which they take, the first class taking eight in each compartment, and the second ten. In the line between Cette and Bayonne, and possibly on other lines, the second-class carriages are not so good, and are more like our own, and do not possess that with wh

learnt the reason, but have imagined that a Government duty or tax is levied on e

there is in such a case only one compartment left for the general travellers by second class-a circumstance which is productive of inconvenience to them. The officials peremptorily keep the dames seules portion for ladies only. On one occasion I had unwit

s, disagreeable-habits which might be postponed until they get out; and so little is thought about it, that it would require Sydney Smith's 'Surgical Operation' to imbue them with the idea that it is a discomfort to others, or that when asked to stop smoking, it is their duty at once as gentlemen to comply. On one occasion in Italy, after speaking to successive passengers, some of whom c

ng out. It is of no manner of consequence although the scenery through which one is passing be the finest or the grandest possible, down goes the blue blind without even the politeness of asking the other passengers whether they so desire or not. As often as I could, I secured a place at the window, and showed that, although a native of a colder clime, I could stand the sunshine for the sake of the view. On one occasion, on a former tour, travelling by diligence from Geneva to Chamounix, there were some Germans smoking continually, as usual, on the seats befor

rom end to end of the carriage, and the guard can thus pass through from one carriage to another. At Interlachen, between the two lakes, there is an upper sto

to Toulouse, our train took ten hours, stopping at thirty different stations by the way between Cette and Toulouse, with twenty minutes to dine at Narbonne, the previous part of the journey between Nismes and Cette, a short distance, having been express. The distance is only 298 kilometres, or about 186 miles for the whole journey, the rate of speed between Cette and Toulouse being thus only between 14 and 15 miles per hour. In like manner eight hours were consumed in the journey between Pau and Toulouse, which is about 130 miles, or rather more than 16 miles per hour. Not only is the spe

security is greater. We seldom hear

oes not follow that it will be the first to arrive at the destination. A still further and annoying peculiarity is, that the railway company by first-class express trains will not always book to every station on the line at which they stop. Thus a

ce in many, perhaps most places, for every hotel to keep an omnibus which goes to the station for every train. Probably there is some jealousy lest cab-drivers or general omnibus conductors might beguile or be bribed to beguile the visitors to certain hotels; but whether it be from this cause or from ostentation, the consequence is that there is waiting for employment a number of conveyances altogether out of proportion to the number of passengers requiring conveyance. I have counted at Mentone, waiting arrival of a train, twenty omnibuses, inclusive of a general one, with their respective drivers and conductors, and nearly as many cabs; while the number of passengers leaving the train would not exceed twenty in all, o

and with luggage it is usually 1? francs. If a party consist of four, it has thus to pay 6 francs or 5s. for the drive to the hotel, which is expensive; and it is much cheaper, if there be not heavy luggage,

se where we expected to obtain quarters. It turned out to be full, and I left the omnibus, crossed the street on foot and inquired at two hotels, at the second of which I found accommodation, and the omnibus brought across the luggage. The co

d Mentone, 3 francs. These figures will give an approximate idea of the cost. On leaving Mentone, the second season, I sent a box (under 50 kilogrammes weight) to Glasgow, to care of Messrs. J. and P. Cameron, railway agents, to go by petite vitesse to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Glasgow, where Messrs. Cameron passed it through the customs and despatched it to Edinburgh. The total cost was 6s. 10d. A box I sent from Naples to the care of a mercantile friend in Liverpool, by whom it was passed and forwarded to Edinburgh, cost for carriage, Naples to Edinburgh, ￡1, 2s. 6d. This amount embraced shipping agents' charges, and was sent as freight. Had I sent the box simply as a parcel, it would have cost 5s. 6d. less, but the shipper would not for the lesser