IN SIZILIEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1925, Page 4

IN SIZILIEN.

THE GERMANS ON HOLIDAY. (Valentine Williams in “Daily .Mail".) TAORMINA. April 30. “Ent'/nekeud! . . • •’ “Herrln-h ! ” •• Wunderselion !....' The peerless beauty spots ol Sicily ring to-day with the guttural accent ol the German tourist. Germans ct all classes and not ol the “Scheiber the profiteer, type alone, a.s in the Jii-st rears after the war, have allowed themselves the luxury of the long and expensive journey, from Germany and |invo descended in a swarm upon the island. In the great hotels, as in the cheap pensions, the Germans outnumber the visitors of all other nationalities; they have swamped the accommodation of the “trains de luxe’’ to Naples and I Ramp for the homeward journey ; and for their tours about the island many

of them engage private ears. American friends of mine declined to hire a car to travel the 20(1 odd miles from Palermo to Tiiiurniinu because It hey found the. price demanded. 2.000 lire, about £l7 10s excessive; but the Germans pay this price all the time. . 1 cannot imagine why those well-in-tentioned folk who are appealing for funds to feed the hungry Germans do not semi their collecting cards to Sicily, where the real money is. instead of rattling their boxes among hungry Britons at home. T could take them into one or two restaurants here or in Palermo and let them hear a feed-thc-Germnn drive in full swing. With most, of the Gorman tourists in the big hotels, so the hotel folk assure mo. money is absolutely no object. They demand the best aeeoinnicdatiuii roams with private bath, balcony, sea view; and .since they pay wilhout discussion, not unnaturally, they get it. They stint themselves of nothing; in fact, that bugbear or hotel-keepers, the pre-war German tourist, who took the cheapest room atul spruit nothing further in the. hotel, is a thing of the joist. amazing clothes.

To fairness to our late enemies, it should be remarked that the public behaviour of the travelling Orman has greatly improved. The Ormans. 1 know, are highly sensitive on the subject of the repute which their war methods gained them in the eyes ot the civilised world: and those whom 1 have encountered since the armistice, paiticula rly this spring in Sicily, keep themselves strictly to themselves. One is therefore spared the tiresome practice of the travelling Merman of thrusting his acquaintanceship upon all and sundry In order to improve his knowledge of foreign longues; and most of the insufferable and provocative German bounce has evaporated. The restaurant manners of some of these wealthy German tourists are rather hard to hear, until one has accustomed one-ell to tin* sight ot assiduous tooth-pick drill between the courses; and the wav in which at one plai i- a Merman hoin'\menu couple paued each other about in public did more credit to their affection than to their discretion. The German taste in dross remains extraordinary. I cannot find that obese men, crammed into skin-tight I’alm Beach suits, with shaven heads lined with pink creases at the hack. or stint, women, arrayed in screaming 1 laid, uith skirts -holt enough to display a monstrous calf bursting out, of the mesf expensive of silk Sicilian scene. Xor, he il said, do those Germans of less modern ideas who push their discretion in dross to the point

of travelling, the men in howler lints and morning-coat suits and the women in satin or even plush. But do not suppose that it is Germany's new rich only who are thronging Sicily this spring. The German tourists seem to he of all social levels, many quite obviously belonging to the professional and student classes, who, wo are constantly assured, arc starving. .1 don't know where they have got the money to treat themselves to I this long trip from home, hut here they are. with their Bundreise tickets, crowding the cheap hoarding-houses | and filling the second class in the trains. In all the tourist centres of Sicily, too. you come across hands of young German men and girls, rucksack on hack, browned hv the sun. oil walking tours. I’I.KXTY OF MOXEY. “l.’argent est toujours boil” is a practical French saying, and. in accordance with its leaching, the Italinn-, willy-nilly, do what is necessary to handle the Gorman invasion. So many of the employees ill the large Sicilian hotels speak German and Italian with equal fluency that I can only suppose they come from the former Italian provinces of Austriallungary.

Hotel notices and notices ill the station buffets are in German as well as French. English, ami rtalian: while here in Taormina the Casino posters I and many announcements in the shops. I are in the four languages. In Taor- | mina and other tourist resorts many : of the shops are kept by Germans, who come from Germany for the sea- ' son only, to sell picture postcards, plioj togrnphs. antiquities, and bric-a-brac, j they snapshot continuously. Whatever their station one thing is | evident about all these German tourists. and that is that, everyone, ac-

cording to his mode of life, is ahun.dantly provided with money for Ids holiday. Even the less well-to-do drive out in carriages, go for excursions on donkey-liack. dance at the Casino and the “the- ilansants". and foregather at the “aperitif” hour at cafe and liar. And almost all have cameras, admirable German cameras, many of the ; most elaborate description, with which they snapshoot continuously. There are no French and few British tourists of this class in Sicily. It is 1 i

to he supposed that they cannot afford the fare. No sensible person begrudges the Germans their Italian vacations; hut their invasion of Sicily should silence the stories of German penury which prevents our late enemies from paying their debts. There is no national amour propre left in Germany, so it is probably too much to expect that these people, who can afford I go touring in Italy, .should object to foreigners pauperising their nation by feeding their children. As an Italian said to me: “Why didn’t we lose the war?"