According to Baedeker a stay of a fortnight or three weeks was enough to give the traveller a superficial idea of ‘the innumerable attractions which the city offers, but a residence of several months would be requisite to enable him satisfactorily to explore its vast treasures of art and industry’.
We will assume, however, that he is ready to leave, and continue his several months’ tour of the Continent and the Middle East. In the sitting room of the hotel he will unfold the cloth-bound and dissected map of Central Europe which opens elegantly from the form of a book, engraved by B. R. Davies, and published by Edward Stanford of 6 Charing Cross in 1873. The British always journeyed with good maps, and the beautifully coloured and engraved specimen no doubt carried by our gentleman-traveller showed ‘all the Railways in use with the Stations. Also the principal roads, rivers and Mountain Ranges’, in a coverage extending from the Atlantic to Russian Poland, and from the Mersey to Bosnia (then part of the Turkish Empire). The scale of twenty-four miles to an inch makes its size somewhat awkward for unfolding in a crowded diligence or railway carriage, but most convenient for planning purposes; with a one-franc bottle of wine to hand, our traveller’s finger moves languidly towards Switzerland.
In 1874 a first-class railway ticket from Paris to Basel cost sixty-three francs, the distance of 328 miles being covered in twelve hours. If our Victorian traveller intended stopping along the way he will have noted the following in Murray’s handbook:
‘It has been the custom of the English, who traverse France on their way to Italy or Switzerland, to complain of the monotonous features of the country, and to ridicule the epithet “la Belle France”, which the French are wont to apply to it. By a “beautiful” country, a Frenchman generally understands one richly fertile and fully cultivated; and in this point of view the epithet is justly applied to France. It is also most fortunate in its climate. Many of its vineyards, the most valuable spots in the country, occupy tracts of poor, barren, and waste land, in appearance, which in our climate would be absolutely unprofitable … In France, the features of nature are broad and expanded, and you must often traverse 50 or 100 miles to encounter these pleasing changes which, in Britain, succeed one another almost every 10 miles.’
The writer goes on to say that, in compensation for this supposed dullness of terrain: ‘… glorious monuments of architectural skill and lavish devotion are far more stupendous in their proportion than the cathedrals of England, but have this peculiarity, that scarcely one of them is finished: thus Beauvais has no nave, Amiens has no towers, Bourges no spire.’
It was a time, we are reminded, when French provincial towns were being improved for the social convenience of their inhabitants, many completely remodelled, with straight streets and handsome shops replacing narrow and crooked lanes: ‘There are many institutions and establishments in French towns,’ said Murray, ‘deserving high commendation and imitation in England: such are the Abattoirs, or slaughterhouses, always in the outskirts; the public Cemeteries, always situated outside the walls: even the Public Walks to be found in every French town, though not suited altogether to English ideas of recreation, yet show an attention to health and enjoyment of the people which would be worthy of imitation on our side of the Channel.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SWITZERLAND
The first problem our traveller must consider on entering Switzerland is the complication of money. In his Murray of 1838 he will perhaps already have noted that: ‘There is hardly a country in Europe which has so complicated a currency as Switzerland; almost every canton has a Coinage of its own, and those coins that are current in one canton will not pass in the next. Let the traveller, therefore, be cautious how he overloads himself with more small change than he is sure of requiring.’
One English sovereign could be exchanged for 17 Swiss francs, 4 batzen and 6 rappen. If any French cash remains in his pocket he will get 7 batzen and 8 rapps for each franc. In the German-speaking provinces a Swiss guilden will net 60 kreutzers, and a ducat 30. The Zurich florin is divided into 16 (good) batzen and 40 rapps, and again into 40 schillings of 4 rapps each. At Geneva a French 5-franc piece will fetch 3 livres, 1 sol and 9 deniers. In the Grisons canton a florin contains 15 (light) batzen and 60 kreutzers, or 70 blutgers, which is the equivalent of 1 French franc 76 centimes, or 16 English pence. In the southern or Ticino part of the country the lira contains 20 solidi, each of 4 quatrini. Perhaps the Norfolk jacket of those days had more pockets than it does today. By 1850, however, the Swiss currency was brought into conformity with that of France.
Having sorted out the above problem, if he ever did, our traveller will take out his map of the country at the first good inn he comes to, though the remarks in his Murray concerning the complexity and variation in measuring distance will not be reassuring, for they are ‘reckoned not by miles, but by stunden (hours’ walking) or leagues. The measures of length given in the following routes have been taken from the most perfect tables that could be procured; but the Editor is aware that there must be many errors, and that an approach to accuracy is all that can be expected from them. The length of the stunde has been calculated at 5278 metres, or 2708 toises or 1800 Bernese feet; 21,137 of such stunden go to a degree of the Equator. To make their measurement agree with the actual pace of walking, it is necessary to advance 271 Paris feet in a minute … Since the correction of weights and measures in 1833–34, 3/10 of a metre, or 3 decimetres, or 132,988 Paris lines has been constituted the legal Swiss foot, and 16,000 Swiss feet 1 stunde.’
Folding his map with a sigh, if not in a fit of absolute vexation, our traveller will notice that on the Italian side of the Alps things are even worse. Regarding distances in Piedmont, ‘it is nowhere more strangely felt than in this route to the Val d’Aosta from Turin. With maps, post-books, descriptions of the valley, and the latest authority of the government before us, neither distances nor measures can be reconciled. Whether the miles are geographical, 60 to a degree, or of Piedmont, 40 to a degree, is not mentioned; and no measure from the scales of three of the best maps will agree with either of the quantities described in the three best works, which ought to be of authority since they are sanctioned by the government; so that the distances named can only be approximations.’
Before taking to the road it will be learned that travelling by diligence in Switzerland has greatly improved in the last twenty years but, even so: ‘On some routes, particularly in going from one canton into another, passengers are sometimes transferred into another coach, and run the chance of waiting several hours for it, being set down in a remote spot to pass the interval as they may, and this not unfrequently in the middle of the night.’
Those who wish to hire a carriage and driver will observe that: ‘Before making an engagement, it is prudent to consult the landlord of the inn or some other respectable inhabitant — (N.B. not the waiter) — to recommend a person of approved character to be employed. As there are many very roguish voituriers, ready to take advantage of the traveller on all occasions, such a recommendation will be a guarantee, to a certain extent, for good behaviour. The landlord should be referred to apart, not in the presence of the coachman, nor, indeed, with his cognizance. It is a bad plan to intrust a waiter or inferior person with the negotiation; he will most probably sell the traveller to the voiturier, and make a job for his own advantage.’