Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car. Mansfield Milburg Francisco

hotels of Italy are dear or not, according to whether one patronizes a certain class of establishment. At Trouville, at Aix-les-Bains in France, at Cernobbio in the Italian Lake region, or on the Quai Parthenope at Naples, there is little difference in price or quality, and the cuisine is always French.

      The automobilist who demands garage accommodation as well will not always find it in the big city hotel in Italy. He may patronize the F. I. A. T. Garages in Rome, Naples, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Venice, Turin and Padua and find the best of accommodation and fair prices. For a demonstration of this he may compare what he gets and what he pays for it at Pisa – where a F. I. A. T. garage is wanting – and note the difference.

      The real Italian hotel, outside the great centres, has less of a clientèle of snobs and malades imaginaires than one finds in France – in the Pyrenees or on the Riviera, or in Switzerland among the Alps, and accordingly there is always accommodation to be found that is in a class between the resplendent gold-lace and silver-gilt establishments of the resorts and working-men’s lodging houses. True there is the same class of establishment existing in the smaller cities in France, but the small towns of France are not yet as much “travelled” by strangers as are those of Italy, and hence the difference to be remarked.

      The real Italian hotels, not the tourist establishments, will cater for one at about one half the price demanded by even the second order of tourist hotels, and the Italian landlord shows no disrespect towards a client who would know his price beforehand – and he will usually make it favourable at the first demand, for fear you will “shop around” and finally go elsewhere.

      The automobile here, as everywhere, tends to elevate prices, but much depends on the individual attitude of the traveller. A convincing air of independence and knowledge on the part of the automobilist, as he arrives, will speedily put him en rapport with the Italian landlord. Look as wise as possible and always ask the price beforehand – even while your motor is still chugging away. That never fails to bring things to a just and proper relation.

      It is at Florence, and in the environs of Naples, of all the great tourist centres, that one finds the best fare at the most favourable prices, but certainly at Rome and Venice, in the great hotels, it is far less attractive and a great deal dearer, delightful though it may be to sojourn in a palace of other days.

      The Italian wayside inns, or trattoria, are not all bad; neither are they all good. The average is better than it has usually been given the credit of being, and the automobile is doing much here, as in France, towards a general improvement. A dozen automobiles, with a score or more of people aboard, may come and go in a day to a little inn in some picturesque framing on a main road, say that between Siena and Rome via Orvieto, or to Finale Marina or Varazze in Liguria, to one carriage and pair with two persons and a driver. Accordingly, this means increased prosperity for the inn-holder, and he would be a dull wit indeed if he didn’t see it. He does see it in France, with a very clear vision; in Italy, with a point of view very little dimmed; in Switzerland, when the governmental authorities will let him; and in England, when the country boniface comes anywhere near to being the intelligent person that his continental compeer finds himself. This is truth, plain, unvarnished truth, just as the writer has found it. Others may have their own ideas about the subject, but this is the record of one man’s experiences, and presumably of some others.

      The chief disadvantages of the hotel of the small Italian town are its often crowded and incomplete accessories, and its proximity to a stable of braying donkeys, bellowing cows, or an industrious blacksmith who begins before sun-up to pound out the same metallic ring that his confrères do all over the world. There is nothing especially Italian about a blacksmith’s shop in Italy. All blacksmith interiors are the same whether painted by “Old Crome,” Eastman Johnson or Jean François Millet.

      The idiosyncrasies of the inns of the small Italian towns do not necessarily preclude their offering good wholesome fare to the traveller, and this in spite of the fact that not every one likes his salad with garlic in liberal doses or his macaroni smothered in oil. Each, however, is better than steak smothered in onions or potatoes fried in lard; any “hygienist” will tell you that.

      The trouble with most foreigners in Italy, when they begin to talk about the rancid oil and other strange tasting native products, is that they have not previously known the real thing. Olive oil, real olive oil, tastes like – well, like olive oil. The other kinds, those we are mostly used to elsewhere, taste like cotton seed or peanut oil, which is probably what they are. One need not blame the Italian for this, though when he himself eats of it, or gives it you to eat, it is the genuine article. You may eat it or not, according as you may like it or not, but the Italian isn’t trying to poison you or work off anything on your stomach half so bad as the rancid bacon one sometimes gets in Germany or the kippers of two seasons ago that appear all over England in the small towns.

      As before intimated, the chief trouble with the small hotels in Italy is their deficiencies, but the Touring Club Italiano in Italy, like the Touring Club de France in France, is doing heroic work in educating the country inn-keeper. Why should not some similar institution do the same thing in England and America? How many American country hotels, in towns of three or five thousand people, in say Georgia or Missouri, would get up, for the chance traveller who dropped in on them unexpectedly, a satisfactory meal? Not many, the writer fancies.

      There is, all over Europe, a desire on the part of the small or large hotel keeper to furnish meals out of hours, and often at no increase in price. The automobilist appreciates this, and has come to learn in Italy that the old Italian proverb “chi tardi arriva mal alloggia” is entirely a myth of the guide books of a couple of generations ago. A cold bird, a dish of macaroni, a salad and a flask of wine will try no inn-keeper’s capabilities, even with no notice beforehand. The Italian would seemingly prefer to serve meals in this fashion than at the tavola rotonda, which is the Italian’s way of referring to a table d’hôte. If you have doubts as to your Italian Boniface treating you right as to price (after you have eaten of his fare) arrange things beforehand a prezzo fisso and you will be safe.

      As for wine, the cheapest is often as good as the best in the small towns, and is commonly included in the prezzo fisso, or should be. It’s for you to see that you get it on that basis of reckoning.

      The padrona of an Italian country inn is very democratic; he believes in equality and fraternity, and whether you come in a sixty-horse Mercédès or on donkey-back he sits you down in a room with a mixed crew of his countrymen and pays no more attention to you than if you were one of them. That is, he doesn’t exploit you as does the Swiss, he doesn’t overcharge you, and he doesn’t try to tempt your palate with poor imitation of the bacon and eggs of old England, or the tenderloins of America. He gives you simply the fare of the country and lets it go at that.

      Of Italian inns, it may be truly said the day has passed when the traveller wished he was a horse in order that he might eat their food; oats being good everywhere.

      The fare of the great Italian cities, at least that of the hotels frequented by tourists, has very little that is national about it. To find these one has to go elsewhere, to the small Italian hotels in the large towns, along with the priests and the soldiers, or keep to the byways.

      The polenta, or corn-meal bread, and the companatico, sardines, anchovies or herrings which are worked over into a paste and spread on it butter-wise, is everywhere found, and it is good. No osteria or trattoria by the roadside, but will give you this on short order if you do not seek anything more substantial. The minestra, or cabbage soup – it may not be cabbage at all, but it looks it – a sort of “omnium gatherum” soup – is warming and filling. Polenta, companatico, minestra and a salad, with fromaggio to wind up with, and red wine to drink, ought not to cost more than a lira, or a lira and a half at the most wherever found. You won’t want to continue the same fare for dinner the same day, perhaps, but it works well for luncheon.

      Pay no charges for attendance. No one does anyway, but tourists of convention. Let the buono mano to the waiter who serves you be the sole largess that you distribute, save to the man-of-all-work who brings you water for the thirsty maw of your automobile, or to the amiable, sunshiny individual who lugs your baggage up and down to