FINE EASTER HOLIDAY WEATHER IN EUROPE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28259, 23 April 1957, Page 8

FINE EASTER HOLIDAY WEATHER IN EUROPE

(N.Z.. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, April 21

Britain’s unprecedented holiday rush to the coast and country continued today with Sunday traffic heavier than ever before, in spite of petrol rationing. On the third day of the holiday the roads were still packed. At Southend, Brighton, Blackpool, and other popular resorts round the coast the sun continued to defy pessimistic weather forecasts. Special excursion trains were full, and shortly before noon road travellers were leaving London for the coast in all directions at the rate of an estimated 20,000 an hour —6000 an hour more than last year. The picture was the same in most European capitals. Fine weather enticed citizens and visitors out in great numbers to the traditional Easter holiday festivities. Thousands of tourists swarmed into Holland. Roads in the tulip districts were packed, and the visitors, mostly from Germany, saw bright carpets of flowers. An estimated 250,000 tourists packed the hotels of Paris for the Easter holidays and 1,000,000 Parisians flocked to the country by train or car. Paris and most of France had fine, sunny weather. Nearly 5000 holiday makers cruised along the River Seine today, following the route taken earlier this month by Queen Elizabeth. Warm and generally sunny weather was reported from the crowded Swiss resorts. Conditions were good in most of the Alpine regions. In the Ardennes region of southeast Belgium, children knocked at the doors to receive brightlycoloured eggs and a few coins as

a “salary” for “replacing the church bells during their flight to Rome”—by going from house to house during Easter week telling people it was time for prayer. The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia celebrated a solemn divine service at the Moscow Patriarchal Cathedral of the Russian Church last night. Officials from embassies and members of their families attended, the Soviet news agency, Tass, reported. A record number of vehicles, estimated at close to 1,000,000, were on the roads in Sweden this week-end. Record numbers of Swedes crossed into Denmark yesterday for cheap shopping excursions. Farm products cost 10 to 20 per cent, below Swedish prices, and butter, margarine, smoked meat and cigarettes were the favourite purchases. New York Parade More than 1,200,000 New Yorkers displayed their new spring finery along 10 blocks of Fifth avenue today in the hottest Easter parade on record. With temperatures in the 80’s, it was the hottest Easter Day since 1889. The dominant feature of the parade was the white straw hat. which has returned to favour again this Other hats that caused heads to turn included a straw model bedecked with lifesized fowls and coloured eggs. The police succeeded even better than usual in keeping exhibitionists out of the parade. But, as always, a few individualists slipped in—women with dressed up, flower-decked poodles, and a portly woman in a pink and black straw hat with a drooping wingspread of about 4ft.