Travel Notes for Easter

" Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect., lady of light."

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.11' a jolly journey it is to Paris on an afternoon in spring ! is dinner time when the train leaves Calais. You feel at r that you are in a land where the art of eating is understood. v an hour from Dover :. only a strip of sea between English

and this wheeled temple of Lucullus ! Yet what a gulf a-een the French and English ideas of food !

The would have thought we should have learned something n the contagion of war, if not from geographical propin- iv. Alas ! we deal as unkindly with our vegetables and rder our salads to-day just as we did when I was a boy. the truth be known : our cooking is as bad as it ever was, our waiting perhaps worse. I fear Englishmen don't like pg waiters, but why ? See a Frenchman serve at table- t pride he: takes in his duties ! How sympathetically he .es the meat and serves the salad, how carefully he studies 1r idiosyncrasies. He is always quick and silent and allied in smiles. The first English waiter to be wreathed ;miles should receive a medal from the " Come to Britain " vemeat.

• es- • his panegyric on gastronomic Gaul has an end in view. could cook as well as the French if we tried, for cooks are de. not born. And we could learn much about service from French. If we did try, and did learn, then knowledge of art of eating would permeate all classes of society and -e us healthier, happier, and even richer ; for more visitors aid undoubtedly mean less taxes. We have the best basic erial on earth here—in men, meat and natural surroundings ; IS use them to the advantage of all.

saris restaurants are a subject that is endless. I will only tion two. I had a marmite with coxcombs and carrots, st with salad, a hot-cold ice, a small bottle of Pouilly- sse that beamed with sunlight, and a glass of fifty-year-old

champagne for the modest price of eight shillings at

Kitt exchange, at the little Vian restaurant tucked away he Rue Daunou near the Opera. Nowhere but in France, pink, could one dine so well at double the price. I enjoyed ermitage Muscovite also, in the Rue Caumartin ; it is rely Russian, with superb singing and real bortsch.

'he Caveat' Caucasien in Rue Pigalle is a well-known cabaret Kliis worth visiting, but the French rarely go there, for it is expensive. From midnight to dawn there is a good show a lively band, the professional dancers being witty as well ood-looking. The cooking is excellent, especially the onion I. But it is all very dear, even the soup. With the fall .xellange, however, the restaurateurs of Montmartre seem ,e reducing their prices ; one must hope that they will not a their garments of repentance • on the fire of spring. atiwlille Montparnasse is gay and Latin and cheap. An fling at the Rotonde can be made a most amusing affair at letieally no expense. As the night wears on the pictures that fa the walls seem'to take on new shape and meaning and becomes infected with a gaiety which is really Parisian.

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nail the Seine to the Scilly Isles is a far cry, but it is not at a bad rule to go to warm places in the summer and cold cs in the winter. Certainly it is tinforixolate that there is .onnexion between London and Penzance which enables to catch the noon boat to those islands which the antic believe to be the peaks of lost Atlantis—the tillies." However, the journey is inexpensive (£7 6s. 44. t class return from London) and there are few more de- Itful places than this " land of Lyonesse." The Phoenicians t there to get tin ; now we find flowers instead, and !fun- ds of tons of them are shipped to London and other srkets annually, and springtime at St. Mary's is a sight that I live in memory.

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- • . . • Riviera is at its best in May and June for those win) bathing and take sensible exercise. • Madeira again is delightful in spring, and the verdant mountain isle that towers up into the morning haze as the steamer enters Funchal Bay is one of the most beautiful spectacles in the world. And Greece is glorious in May, with its blue gulfs and pellucid bays, and promontories jutting into the sapphire waters like great ships.

But of the various pleasure excursions which arc becoming so popular, there are none better than the Orient Line cruises to the Mediterranean and Adriatic by their 20,000-ton ships, the Otranto ' and Oronsay.' A fifty-four guinea cruise leaves London by the ' Otranto ' on April 23rd, passes Gib- raltar, Corfu, and up the superb Adriatic littoral to Venice. Thence it returns to thread its way through the isles where burning Sappho loved and sang, to Constantinople, Algiers Cadiz and Southampton. A mere mention of all the places where the Otranto' stops at (nineteen harbours in the month) is enough to make any traveller long to be at sea again.

The Oronsay ' leaves London on May 21st, and calls at Gibraltar for Algeciras and Ronda, at both Majorca and Minorca, then at Ajaccio, remains a day and a-half at Venice (where travellers will be able to see tine new discoveries at Herculaneum, besides doing the usual marvellous Amalfi drive and blue grotto trip). Then amongst other enchanting places to visit are Palermo, Syracuse, Algiers and Cadiz, returning to Southampton on June 10th—indeed a three weeks' cruise under ideal conditions which it would be impossible to surpass for interest. The Mediterranean is still in a special sense the hub of world culture, and, as has been said, early spring and summer are the best months to go

there. * * * *

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- A caravan holiday would attract many more people than it does if they knew how possible and practical it is to hire a caravan by the week. The Uplands Caravan Service (whose offices are at 15 Coleridge Walk, Hampstead Garden Suburb, N.W. 11) hire out their caravans fully and completely fur- nished with bedding, table service, linen, &c., for £0 Us. a week during April and May, for a minimum period of a fort- night. There is accommodation for four adults, so one could hardly imagine a less expensive kind of holiday. I have never tried motor caravanning myself, but I shall certainly do so at the first opportunity. Given congenial company and good weather there would seem to be no more delightful way of spending a holiday. Perhaps correspondents who are versed in this method of recreation will write giving us a few hints for the benefit of readers of the next issue of these travel jottings, which will be published in June.

A flying holiday may appear a somewhat bold suggest ion to make, but the air routes are not 'yet overcrowded at this time of year. The cost of flying is very reasonable ; indeed, it is no more than first class train travel and there are fewer inci- dentals. Its safety, in spite of all interested statements to the contrary, is equal to that of any other form of travel, and the speed, especially in the case of certain cross-country European journeys, much superior. Imperial Airways have just issued the " Aerial A.B.C.," giving a time-table for all over Europe. One may fly in English machines to Zurich and back to London for fifteen guineas. Another attractive trip would he by Imperial Airways to Bale, thence to Strasbourg, by train to Saarbriicken, and th.:•rti,:n by air to Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Amsterdam and London. There iri nothing like the high air to blow away the cobwebs of fatigue and overstrain ; doctors are beginning to recommend flying as they recommend a long sea voyage.

The Travel Editor will be glad to give our readers any advice they may require regarding travel. More and more people seek our advice ; it is wise, therefore, to write well before the proposed date of departure, as inquiries sometimes take over a week to answer. Letters should be addressed— The Travel Editor, 13 York Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 2.