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Italian Highways and Byways
From a Motor Car

CHAPTER I

THE WAY ABOUT ITALY

ONE travels in Italy chiefly in search of the picturesque, but in Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice or Milan, and in the larger towns lying between, there is, in spite of the romantic association of great names, little that appeals to one in a personal sense. One admires what Ruskin, Hare or Symonds tells one to admire, gets a smattering of the romantic history of the great families of the palaces and villas of Rome and Florence, but absorbs little or nothing of the genuine feudal traditions of the background regions away from the well-worn roads.

Along the highways and byways runs the itinerary of the author and illustrator of this book, and they have thus been able to view many of the beauties and charms of the countryside which have been unknown to most travellers in Italy in these days of the modern railway.

Alla Campagna was our watchword as we set out to pass as many of our Italian days and nights as possible in places little celebrated in popular annals, a better way of knowing Italy than one will ever know it when viewed simply from the Vatican steps or Frascati’s gardens.

The palaces and villas of Rome, Florence and Venice are known to most European travellers—as they know Capri, Vesuvius or Amalfi; but of the grim castles of Ancona, of Rimini and Ravenna, and of the classic charms of Taormina or of Sarazza they know considerably less; and still less of Monte Cristo’s Island, of Elba, of Otranto, and of the little hidden-away mountain towns of the Alps of Piedmont and the Val d’Aoste.

The automobile, as a means of getting about, has opened up many old and half-used byways, and the automobile traveller of to-day may confidently assert that he has come to know the countryside of a beloved land as it was not even possible for his grandfathers to know it.

The Italian tour may be made as a conducted tour, as an educative tour, as a mere butterfly tour (as it often has been), or as a honeymoon trip, but the reason for its making is always the same; the fact that Italy is a soft, fair, romantic land where many things have existed, and still exist, that may be found nowhere else on earth.

The romance of travel and the process of gathering legends and tales of local manners and customs is in no way spoiled because of modern means of travel. Many a hitherto unexploited locality, with as worthy a monumental shrine as many more celebrated, will now become accessible, perhaps even well known.

The pilgrim goes to Italy because of his devotion to religion, or to art or architecture, and, since this is the reason for his going, it is this reason, too, which has caused the making of more travel books on Italy than on all other continental countries combined. There are some who affect only “old masters” or literary shrines, others who crave palaces or villas, and yet others who haunt the roulette tables of Monte Carlo, Biarritz, or some exclusive Club in the “Eternal City.” European travel is all things to all men.

The pilgrims that come to Italy in increasing numbers each year are not all born and bred of artistic tastes, but the expedition soon brings a glimmer of it to the most sordid soul that ever took his amusements apart from his edification, and therein lies the secret of pleasurable travel for all classes.