A WANDERER’S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 54, 27 November 1926, Page 24

A WANDERER’S NOTE BOOK

(BY

CHARLES WILSON)

XHI.

[Specially Written for The Dominion.]

SOME ITALIAN IMPRESSIONS (I). Through France by Night. The Channel is evidently too much for many of my fellow-passengers from Folkstone to Boulogne, and the stewards are kept busy, but there is no thing to disturb the equanimity of a stomach •‘broken-in’’ to the sea forty years ago and more by the erratic plunging of the old Stormbird, the Huia, the Go-Ahead or Charles Edward, as they rounded Terawhiti or .Sinclair Head, and my life’s companion being lucky we reach Bomogne in peace and board a train which is to taken us right through to Milan Night travelling is to me always a rather weird and dreary proceeding, although perhaps, there is a temporary touch of something akin to the romantic as a sleepless traveller goes out into the corridor for a cigarette and suddenly the car rolls Into a big station where, among a crowd of baffling placards of this or that liqueur or chocolate, one spots the word Reims and remembers there here is the centre of the champagne district, and that away in the dark is that splendid cathedral which the Hun did bis best—or worst—to destroy, but the facade of which, so a friendly fellow-traveller informs us,, is gradually—if very gradually—assuming its old appearance. I ought, I am told, to descend here, for a couple of days, -and see a famous cellar of fizz and go through one of the great woollen mills, to which latter goes, I believe, some of the best and most costlv New Zealand wool. But this is impossible, and soon we rumble away into the darkness, the next stop, a good 120 miles or so, being the once frontier town of Belfort, so famous at the time of the Franco-German War. Sweet-Aired Switzerland.

I get my first experience of Switzerland at Basle, where an early and very welcome breakfast of good cafe au lait —the Swiss milk is delightfully fresh and good—rolls and a bunch of grapes ,comes to the weary traveller as a nice deed in a naughty world. It is a long journey from Basle to Milan—from halfpast 6to not far off 4—but the experience is one to be remembered. One travels but a very few kilometres along the Swiss lines without being struck by the ever-increasing picturesqueness of the country on either side, the singular good taste of the architecture, and the equally noticeable omnipresent atmosphere of individual and collective industry and comfort. In comic opera, the “Merry Swiss Boy” and his lass used to affect vari-coloured costume, and were given to all too frequent "jodelling,” carrying with them a general air of having very little to do and doing it to the accompaniment of much fanciful melody. From the time I cross the Swiss frontier, where, by the way, the artistic military and official costumes at once attract the eye as agreeably as the bonhomie and courtesy of the people, not one single jodel do I hear But on • everv point one notices the many evidences of well-ordered industry. There seems to be a tremendous amount of building going on, and in my smoker a genial Swiss gentleman, on his ■way to Milan to attend some conference of manufacturers of artificial silk, is pleasantlv informative upon the substantial industrial advance of Helvetia since that, to others, most dreadful war. which, to the little neutral State, must have proved a perfect Godsend financially. Swiss Prosperity.

A. convincing object lesson as to the soundness of the Swiss position to-day is afforded when at a convenient Bureau de Change at one of the railway stations we change a Treasury note into Swiss francs. In France

and Italy the rate of exchange is a subject of individual and national lamentation. In Switzerland the British pound note is worth just a few cen- , times short of its value in Threadneedle Street. An article marked five francs in a Swiss shop window costs, one nds, a fraction over four shillings and twopence, whereas in France its value to the travelling Briton is but a sixth of that sum. In Italy the position is not quite so bad, and if Mussolini, of whom more, a good deal more, anon, can do all he promises to do, it is soon to be quite noticeably better. But in Switzerland, as I had already found it in Holland, the English pound is worth not a farthing over twenty shillings Later on, when, after short sojourns in Rome, Florence, and Venice, we return to Switzerland, at Montreux and Geneva, I am to hear much as to the causes of Swiss prosperity. The ever augmenting volume of hvdro-elcc-trie power is having a striking effect upon industry. The Swiss are harnessing their fast-flowing streams and replacing on everv side steam-driven lie electricallv-nowered machinery What I see, both in Switzerland and H.ily, of the possibilities before electric power makes me agreeably honeful of New Zealand’s industrial future. But this is far too big a subject unrm which to even attempt giving details.

■ Basle to Milan. Tlie railway journey .from Basle to Milan provides a series of ever-chang-ing views of a positively bewildering picturesqueness. From what I am told, this, the St. Gothard tunnel route, is easily the finest in point of scenery. Be this as it may, I bear testimony to the compelling charm of the wonderful piece of railway engineering which provides a steel highway through the St. Gothard tunnel on to the northern plain of Lombardy. The Swiss and the Italians have always been famous as tuntie) makers. At one point the ingenuity which has been responsible for the' turning and twisting of the steel highway recalls memories of the Raurimu Spiral on the North Island Main Trunk line. Tunnel succeeds tunpel as we travel southward, through • beautiful Bellinzona to the charmingly-situated Lugano. Here and further southward, at Como, the carriages emptied as if by magic, for three-fourths of the many English passengers stop at one or other of these enchanting lake towns. Even whilst dreaming of the coming glories of Milan and Rome it is with a pang of regret that we witness the thinning out of the passenger list. But needs must where the tour programme laid down at London drives, and late in the .afternoon the long, long journey which had begun the previous day at Boulogne comes to an end, and a small party of dusty wayfarers mounts, with enthusiasm, the hotel omnibus, which leads to a bath and change, preliminary to sauntering around in Italy’s second city in point of population, and easily the first in that industrial and commercial importance which one cannot be long in Italy of to-day without feeling that it is the one thing which really counts with the present-day Italian. There was a time, mavbe, when the Italian thought first of his country’s great history, .its supremacy as the special home of European art, of the glory of a United Italy, an Italy freed from the domination of the hated Austrian in the nerth and of the disturbing influence of ecclesiastical power in the Roman States. Later on, too, came dreams of African and other oversea enterprise; but today, after a terrible purgation as the result of the war. Italy is, it is easy to see, first and foremost concerned with “making good” as speedily as possible as an industrial and commercial power. Milan's Two Marvels.

It is the curse of what I may call “touristry” to have to be for ever hurrying onwards. This afternoon I must fain refuse the kind offers of a travelling friend • to show me round one of Milan’s great silk factories, whence come, I. believe, a very substantial proportion of those elegant silk stockings with which modern femininity delights to adorn itself. I am afraid, too, that my honestly confessed ignorance of the extent and importance qf Italy’s motor industry and mv evident preference to see the Cathedral and the great Galleria Vittoria Emmanel—otherwise the Victor Emmanuel Arcade, the largest structure of its kind in Europe—not a little astonishes and, perhaps, who knows, even disgusts the courteous offer of a second industrial inspector. But to arrive in Milan and not to proceed alone to visit its wonderful cathedral would be akin to dipping into Stratford-on-Avon and not hastening off to Shakespeare’s house. Milan’s seven hundred thousand people may be prouder today of their city being the "capital of Italian progress,/ the seat of silk and motor manufactures, unsurpassed in size and importance in Europe. A Poem In Stone,

But for me my first interest lies in the famed Duomo, which an American

lady in the party fantastically but not untruthfully styles a poem in stone. When cathedrals are under discussion I never fail, as a good Yorksliireman, to champion the impressive and rather austere beauty of York’s great Gothic structure. And even after seeing St. Peter’s, and the Duomo, with its graceful Giotto designed campanile at Florence and the fascinating Byzantine mosaic wonders of San Marco at Venice I still remain faithful to the grand old building by the Duse Milan, however, is fully deserving of its comparison to a piece of exquisite lace. Exactly how many beautiful statues—they are here by hundreds, even upon the roof and sides—the Cathedral possesses I cannot say. But as I walk round its lovely interior with that peculiar feeling of subdued reverence which must conic over anyone who sees these exquisite buildings for the first time and as, after dinner, I view anew, in the pale silver sheen of a mellow moonlitfht, its many sculptured glories, n brain picture is created which I doubt not must lie in lestructible so long as memory remains with me As I have said, Milan’s second wonder, finite a modern thing, is the wonderful Galleria, or Arcade whose name commemorates the most momentous achievement in nineteenth century Italian history Who buys all the beautiful and costly things in the Galleria I cannot say, but the

rents are, I am told, as enormous as they are in London s Bond Street, or that Rue de I’aix in Faris, to winch I believe every good American millionaire’s wife first commands her obedient hubby to conduct her. Avanti to Roma.

“Avanti,” forward, to Roma, as the Italians stvle the Eternal City. Personally I stand by John Bull’s spelling, and shall write "Milan” rather than Milano, Florence for Firenze, Rome for Roma, and Venice for Venezia. Every now and then, in Italy, as in other European countries, I meet British and American tourists who correct me when I ignore the local names, but to me this is but a sillv affectation. Anyhow on this already frightfully hot morning as our train rumbles and rattles away southward, I care little as to correct or incorrect information of place names. To travel through new country is always interesting, and the monotonv of the long journey, from seven to close unon eight at night, is rarelv apparent. If onlv the smoke nuisance were not so bad! Mussolini, they say, has worke.d marvels -n the railway administration. Some 20,000 odd officials, poor devils, have been “scrap-heaped” mercilessly, but although there is here no dole or unemployment pay, I suppose ninny must have been hit rather hard by the "regime of economv.” But the trains run, if slowly enough, to time, whereas in the pre-Mussolini davs, to be an hour late was quite a common occurrence, and the carriages are fairly clean. Second class, fov the way, is good enough for anybody, but I

would as soon go to gaol as be packed, as so many have to be, in the straight-backed, uncushioned “thirds.” The one, and quite formidable, fly in the traveller’s ointment is the foul smoke. The Italian railways burn briquettes made, I believe, of compressed coal dust with some variety of petrol to stick it together. Never Out of Sheol itself could there result so utterly villainous a sulphurous smoke. The stink—‘‘smell” is more euphonious, but much less truthful—is as bad as that of Tikitere, and, after a few miles, hands and face resemble those of the old-time chimney sweep. All morning we traverse a vast plain, not one acre of which seems waste land. Here is a rich soil, cultivated, every inch of it, by a hardworking folk. Miles upon miles of vines, of olives, of fruit trees, are passed. The Sausage City. Through Pavia, Piacenza, ana Parma, all towns which seem to have modern factories jostling their ancient buildings, we pass southwards to Bologna, famous lor its colonnated streets—and its sausages The very name recalls a small political storm in a nutshell in far-awav New Zealand, when that elderly dnndv, Vincent Pyke, then, I think, chairman of the House Committee, took it upon liimsclt to

import a large stock _ of the Bologna comestible, one of Ills own special gustatory delights. They serve u verv good lunch on the train, and, perhaps, in local honour, for we have just passed the Sausage City, the hors d'oeuvres with which the meal commences include Mr. Pyke’s favourite sausage, aloug with the olives, sardines, hard-boiled egg, beetroot, and odds and ends generally which precede the second and ever-present dish of macaroni in one of its score or so forms. Later on. we draw up nt Florence, crossing the Arno, historically famous, no doubt, but to-day but a muddy ditch-like stream, and discuss what wc are to see of Dante’s citv when we revisit it later Rome is calling now as we pass through long vailevs with queer old villages high up on the hillsides, and passing through a once malaria-haunted belt we draw up dustv, dirtv, and not a little weary, in a big railway station and make our way to a very welcome hotel. It <s a great trip, btif next time I am down this wav I shall take it in smailci doses.