Travel
Summer and the Continent
THE map of Europe has acquired a new significance for the traveller. The fashion of retracing past history has died ;
modern history is writing itself in too large a hand to allow the attention to wander. We must all have a peep at the process, not without something of the emotions of the schoolboy who obtains an unauthorized view of a Test Match. And yet I do not know why I should say " un- authorized." That is exactly where the modern situation is without precedent. Half of Europe is in pacific revolution, but quite willing, indeed downright anxious, for the other half to come and look on.
I need not mention Italy ; I am thinking in particular of Germany and Russia. Germany is the cheaper and
nearer. , The traveller who sees for the first time the market- place. at Rothenburg or the wild, sunken valley of the Rhine will probably be content to confine his political interests
to the diplomatic monosyllable of Mr. Vernon Bartlett, who says of the many people who asked him whether he did not think that Hitler was the greatest man who had ever lived, that it would have been as difficult for him to answer No " as to tell a child that Santa Claus did not come down the chimney. It is a considerable economy to carry " regis- tered marks," which are now issued in the form of travellers' cheques at the rate of about twenty to the pound. In any case you will be expected to live the simple life. Bathing, sailing, eating or drinking—you are only eccentric if you do not enjoy yourself. This year, of course, there are few Toads in Germany which do not lead, sooner or later, to Oberammergau, whose festival continues till the end of September.
Expenses in:Russip may seem somewhat heavy, but they are at least simple to estimate, as the Soviet visa is con- ditional upon purchase of Soviet travel service, the inclusive daily prices of which are published : £3, 'first class, and
15s., tourist. Here again, it is likely that even sociology will be forgotten when the sun comes down on the Volga or the snows dazzle above some remote, pastoral village of the Caucasus. The very distances assail the imagination ; the waste of Nature goes out interminably on both sides of one's train. I forget how long it took the Christian friar of Marco Polo's day to penetrate Siberia to the court of the Mongol Khan : but I dare say he would have regarded with astonishment the proposal of a tour to Samarkand or to the fastnesses of Baikal, the deepest and most mysterious lake in the world. Russian travel still preserves that quality of the outlandiA, an actual sense of exploration.
However, the majority of us do not travel to explore. We travel because it grows irksome to live for too long on a well-governed island. We travel, in brief, for recreation —and not seldom for recuperation, as the well-known spas of France and Germany and Czechoslovakia would testify. Our passion for travel may be gauged by the continual multiplication of travel interests and agencies. It is often disputed what is the true function of a travel agency. The answer is that it depends - upon the- temperament of the traveller. Some people seem to require the completest buffer between themselves and the outer world •, others would prefer to gesticulate for half an hour rather than have their needs explained in one minute by an intermediary. Somewhere there is a line to be drawn between what is enjoyable and what is merely troublesome to do for ourselves.
Thus, a great deal-of thought has been given lately to the problem of motoring abroad. Motoring has its peculiar pleasures ; it was a pity to be deterred from the Continent by a few mileS of dividing sea. The cost of Channel transport on all routes, including that via Harwich, has been brought down to about six pounds return for an accompanied car. The arrangements for shipping are gladly undertaken by the Automobile Association or the new Autocheques service. The Autoeheques system also provides a thoroughly satisfac- tory solution of the problem of garaging. For those whose inclination is not so much to drive themselves as to be driven, there are numerous coaching tours, to. the French Riviera, to the Tyrol, to the Baltic ; the cost of these may be calculated roughly at two pounds ten a day and it is a supremely com- fortable mode of progression. And how lovely are some of the roads of Europe ! '''The stretch along the Rhone between Lyons and Marseilles The Grand Dolomite Road—how justly named !—between Carezza and Cortina 1 There are infinite reasons for never forsaking the roads.
And yet, considering the map again and considering the unfortunate impossibility of being in more than one place at a time, I am put in mind of that most representative means of modern travel—flight. Here is the superb annihilation of space, beneath which a train crawling into a tunnel or a car changing gear at a street-corner is a vision of strange futility The sky is not less lovely than the earth, though it is a less intimate loveliness. I have seen clouds banking up under a white wing. I have seen the Italian coast go by three miles below me, blue and distinct in June sunlight. There are so
manyjourneys made tolerable at last by the aeroplane. Those bleak seas in the Channel ! Those nights in, French trains ! To such a pitch has the technique of construction i
been carried that it is no longer necessary to raise one's yoke for talking in the more modern 'planes ; and the steward on the London-Paris service serves luncheon as though it had been his family's job for generations. Two hours for France, five for Germany or Switzerland, every season bringing news of faster speeds—the map of Europe shrinks as I hold it in my hand. I cannot be in more-than one place at a time, but I can be in them pretty quickly one after another.
It is summer in England; it is that period of the year when every post brings some new leaflet or brochure portraying the beauties of some foreign land. They lie around me as I write. There is a little demure one in brown covers on Holland, bear- ing a well-known author's name. There is another one under it, lavish with "the vault of blue Italian day." There is one on Spain ; and another on Greece. My memory strays involuntarily. I am standing on the lonely Westkapelle dike, while the sea rides hissing up the mole. I am watching the sun again,- white-hot on Sicilian sands. I remember that in Greece, in June, the air is resinous and sweet. The mood creeps over me—not for travel, still less for exploration . . . it is a question of nostalgics at bottom, I expect, but yes, I should dearly like to go away. Is there anything to prevent it ? There is the telephone, just behind the booklet about Spain. It is a question of economics, perhaps. I must choose one place to go, and the right amount to spend. Shall it be ten pounds in Brittany or the Belgian Ardennes ? Shall it be twenty and Majorca (not being able to afford first- class on the boat from Barcelona) ? But if only I had worked harder and saved more, I might have flown to Cologne, to Berlin, even to Moscow and back ? I hope somebody else will be more fortunate than I am.
KENNETH MATTIIEWS.
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