T Travel
Modern Pilgrim Routes
[We publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers in their plans for travel at home and abroad. They are written by correspondents who have visited the places described. We shall be glad to answer questions arising out of the Travel articles 'published- in our cOlumns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager,' The :SPgcrAlna; 99 Gower Street, W.C.L]. • ALTHOUGH my' own' idea of a -holiday is to see nothing and nobody, and lie quite still in the sunshine with my eyeii shut I consider 'myself qualified , to advise. on. the subject of n
pleasure cruises, for I have not only read many attractive pamphlets about them, but have also studied the people who go on them, sometimes at close quarters. ,
When I was in NorWay two years- ago, about four' cruise ships niveek used to -Eiffehor in the fjord of Loen and disembark their throngs-of old and.young, active and -indolent,-rich and (relatively) poor. I _observed them buying. Lapp.: carvings and Norwegian dresses, driving to the glacier, and sometimes even climbing the. bill where I lay stia-bathing. There was no doubt that their days were a delight to them, and their nights -glittered with gaiety and filled the fjord with music. And I have observed the same people in other surroundings Naples, , Venice, _Constantinople and Bombay. -Times change, but customs remain. The descendants of Chaucer's people, who used to " longen to gon' on pilgrimage in the spring: time, now telephone to a shipping agency. Instead of loading their mule for the trip to Canterbury or consulting a' sooth.; sayer for the hour of their departure, they pack their wardrobe trunks and read illustrated circulars. • They read, for instance, of a trip to the Amazon, a thousand miles into-the heart of the equatorial forests.-- The good ship ' Hildebrand:" (Booth SteaMship Co.,' 11 Adelphi Terrace, W.C. 2) will take them there and back at a cost of £90 (she sails on May 20th and' September 16th), and show . them Oporto, Lisbon, Cintra and Madeira on the way, as well as Para - and ,Manaos on the Amazon, - and all -manner of strange birds and beasts and flowers : vampires, ocelots, macaws, egrets and gigantic water lilies. Another good tour to the South Atlantic is by the French Line (their cuisine is superb) from Plymouth to Panarna on May 19th and June 16th. The fares, including a fortnight in the best hotel in Trinidad, range from £63. But a great .rnany.holiday makers prefer British ships and stewards, and ,shorter cruises. •Vor such I would suggest the new oil-blinihig `turbine Viceroy of' India the 0., which- will -give you- a fortnight's tour of Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona, Palma, Tangier and Vigo at the loW cost of twenty-five- guineas. _ The .acconuncidation oh this latest scion 'of a -famous line is, almost entirely composed of single-berth cabins, Another -delightful P. 0. cruise is by-,the,'RaWaipindi;' to Athentrilie 1-1Oly:Land and Egypt, leaVing on May 8th (twenty-Six -days for-fittYgnineas). 'Elders -and Fyffes Lines, who bring us our bananas, offer five _weeks on the_: Atlantic, with a .viiiitLta 'Jamaica and Colombia, for 150 ; and a month on the sea and a week's sightseeing lo-y- motor in the . beautiful island of -Jamaica for 160. , The' sailings are from ,Avonmouth on June .19th, July 3rd; 17th 'and 31st; and August ;14th. In many ways this -tour of otir'West IndianI3Osseisions is one-of the most' attractive as well as 4nstrOetive, the Wide range of
choice open to the modern pilgrim.: . . - Portugal is a country still Luispoilt. The Nelson Line will take you . to Lisbon on every alternate Thursday, on and
after April 17th; and this date their ' Highland Hope' starts on 'a sixteen-day -rodnd trip for the -very lost, cost of 191 guineas second-class.- Or you:- may -travel by the ' Asturias '• _ of the Royal Mail Line, leaving London on. April 11th, spend a week in sudlle,. -hear, the famous Easter: Mass in the Cathedral, and be back in -London on -April 26th at a cost of twenty-seven guineas. A trip to Madeira or to the Canary 'Islands, by Union Castle liners are holidays to be considered : the former sail weekly from Southampton, and the special return fares during the summer months are £20 first class ; the latter leave London fortnightly : thed
cost is the same. — - - •
The Anchor Line advertise some favourite cruises by the Britannia,' which leaves on July l7th for Spain and North Africa (cost £24) and for the Mediterranean on August 17th (cost £33).- The. White Star has a sailing frond Liverpool t6 Madeira and Teneriffe on August 1st and back (cost £35) and the Royal-Mail to the same places on June 6th (fourteen days for tweiity-sik. guineas. Another - Mediterranean tour is: that of the Blue Star Line : the ` Arandora Castle ' leaven Southampton' ion- July 18-for a fortnight's cruise to Gibraltar; Tangiers, Barcelona, Cadiz_ and the. Balearic :Isles—the cost
in -thirty guineas. - - •
All the famous British lines are running their usual,: or more than their usual number-of cruises to Norway andtheNortheru capitals. The White Star Calgaric ' leaves for the fjords an August 2nd,. and for the Baltic. on August 20th ; the cost in each case is £21 for the fortnight. The Orient sailings are on June 20th, July 5th, 12th, -19th, '26th, &c., and the fares (which -are very' good value from what I have seen of the accomramodation) are twenty guineas for thirteen days. The Viceroy of India' is touring round the British Isles, the Faroes and Shetlands on July 27th and the fjords on August 9th (in each case thirteen days for twenty-four guineas). There is a kind of cachet about P. & 0. arrangements which is indefinable, but worth experiencing.
Finally, I., may as well suggest a trip which forty thousand people undertook last year, namely, tourist-third to Canada or the U.S.A. by Cunard. Every Cunard passenger ship, except the Mauretania,' is now to be equipped for the "tourist-third ". traffic. For £38 you may travel to New York or Montreal 'and back. The Cunard Company arranges various tours to Niagara Falls, Chicago, etc. at an average cast of £1 per day. There are also two specially conducted tours by Ascania ' and Alannia,' visiting Quebec, the marvellous Saguenay go rp and (by the latter boat) overland to New York and Washington, returning by ` Tuscania ' at an inclusive cost of £78 and £98 respectively. The tours begin on August 9th and 29th. I would also mention the nineteen-day trip of the Baltic by the well-known Cunarder 'Carinthia,' which includes three days in Leningrad, for thirty-three guineas. I hope this famous fleet • will convey thousands more people between the Old and New Worlds this coming season.
Then there is the Round the World Cruise by Dollar Line, which for British- tourists can be joined at Marseilles, Genoa, or Naples. After Marseilles the places touched at are New York, Boston, Havana, Cristobal, Balboa, Port of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, Kobe, Shanghai, Hong-kong, Manila, Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Suez, Port Said, Alexandria, and so to Naples again ; 25,000 miles of travel for about £280, first-class all the way, and with the privilege of " stopping over " so that two years may be taken to encircle the world, if desired. The North African tours of the Compagnie Generale Trans- atlantique are almost over for the season ; but I have heard very good accounts of the comfort of the arrangements made by this company and•there is still time to do the Casablanca and Marrakesh trip for instance which leaves Marseilles on April 12th, 15th, 22nd, 29th. The cost per person in the ten-seater cars, for an average stay in North Africa of twenty days, is 185 15s., while- a private car for two persons on the same trip (including the journey from France and back) is £136. These prices include all tips to porters and in hotels, (the courier who accompanies the party may, perhaps, be given a present if he has rendered any special services, but this quite voluntary gift is a very different matter from the irritating search for small coins and the haggling which frays the nerves of the Oriental traveller) and all the usual incidental expenses of every kind. There are so many tours available in the Sahara that I cannot begin to catalogue them, but all information can be obtained at 20 Cockspur Street, S.W.1.
F. Y.-B.
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