Kitabı oku: «Italian Highways and Byways from a Motor Car», sayfa 15
Saint Bernard, who has given his name to two neighbouring mountain passes and to a breed of dogs, was Archbishop of Aoste in his time. His perilous journeys in crossing the Alps, going and coming to and from his missions of good, led to his founding the celebrated hospice on the nearby mountain pass which bears his name. The convent of the Great St. Bernard is the highest habited point in Europe.
From Aoste to the Hospice of the Grand Saint Bernard is twenty-six kilometres, with a rise of nearly 2,000 metres and a fall of a like amount to Martigny in Switzerland. The percentage of rise is considerably greater than the route leading into France by the Little Saint Bernard, which falls short of the former by three hundred metres, but the road is rather better. By far the easiest route from Turin into France is via the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane; but a modern automobile will not quarrel seriously with any of these save one or two short, ugly bits of from fifteen to seventeen per cent. They are pretty stiff; there’s no doubt about that, and with a motor whose horse power is enfeebled by the rarefied atmosphere at these elevations the driver is likely to meet with some surprises.
CHAPTER XX
FROM THE ITALIAN LAKES TO THE RIVIERA
THERE is one delightful crossing of Italy which is not often made either by the automobilist or the traveller by rail. We found it a delightful itinerary, though in no respect did it leave the beaten track of well worn roads; simply it was a hitherto unthought of combination of highroads and byroads which led from Como, on the shores of its mountain lake, to Nice, the head centre of the Riviera, just across the Italian border in France, entering that land of good cooks and good roads (better cooks and better roads than are found in Italy, please remember) via the Col de Tende and the Custom House of San Dalmazzo.
The itinerary covers a length of 365 kilometres and all of it is over passably good roads, the crossing of the frontier and the Lower Alps at the Col de Tende being at a lower level than any other of the Franco-Italian mountain passes, although we encountered snow on the heights even in the month of May.
This route is a pleasant variation from the usual entrance and exit from Italy which the automobilist coming from the south generally makes via one of the high Alpine valleys. If one is bound Parisward the itinerary is lengthened by perhaps five hundred kilometres, but if one has not entered Italy by the Cote d’Azur and the Riviera gateway the thing is decidedly worth the doing.
Como itself is the head centre for this part of the lake region, but we used it only as a “pointe de départ.” Cernobbio is far and away the best idling place on the Lago di Como and is getting to be the rival of Aix-les-Bains in France, already the most frequently visited automobile centre in Europe.
From Cernobbio to Como, swinging around the foot of the lake, is but a short six kilometres, and from the latter place the Milan road leaves by the old barbican gate and winds upwards steadily for a dozen kilometres, crossing the railway line a half a dozen times before Milan is reached.
The detour to Monza was made between Como and Milan, a lengthening of the direct route by perhaps a dozen kilometres, and the Strada Militaire, which joins with the Bergamo-Milan road, was followed into the Lombard capital through the Porto Orientale. The direct road, the post road from Como, enters the city by the Porta Nuova. There seems to be nothing to choose between the two routes, save that to-day one may be good and the other bad as to surface and six months later the reverse be the case.
On entering Milan one circles around the Foro Bonaparte and leaves the city by the Porta Magenta for Turin. Magenta, twenty-five kilometres; Novara, forty-six kilometres; so runs the itinerary, and all of it at the dead level of from 120 to 150 metres above the sea.
We were stoned at Novara and promptly made a complaint to the authorities through the medium of the proprietor of the Hotel de la Ville, where we had a most gorgeous repast for the rather high price of five francs a head. It was worth it, though, in spite of the fact that we garaged the automobile in the dining room where we ate. We got satisfaction, too, for the stoning by the sight of half a dozen small boys being hauled up to the justice, accompanied by their frightened parents. The outcome we are not aware of, but doubtless the hotel proprietor insisted that his clients should not be driven out of town in this manner, and, though probably no serious punishment was inflicted, somebody undoubtedly got a well-needed fright.
The road still continues towards Turin perfectly flat for a matter of a hundred kilometres beyond Novara, the glistening mountain background drawing closer and closer until one realizes to the full just why Turin and Milan are such splendid cities, an effect produced as much by their incomparable sites as by their fine modern buildings, their great avenues and boulevards, and their historic traditions.
This borderland between Lombardy and Piedmont forms the very flower of present day Italy. The diarist Evelyn remarked all this in a more appreciative manner than any writer before or since.
He wrote: “We dined at Marignano near Milan, a grette cittie famous for a cheese a little short of the best Parmeggiano, where we met half a dozen suspicious cavaliers who yet did us no harm. Then passing through a continuous garden we went on with exceeding pleasure, for this is the Paradise of Lombardy, the highways as even and straight as a cord, the fields to a vast extent planted with fruit, and vines climbing every tree planted at equal distances one from the other; likewise there is an abundance of mulberry trees and much corn.”
To arrive on the Riviera from Turin one leaves the roads leading to the high Alpine valleys behind. Directly north from Turin runs the highroad which ultimately debouches into the Val d’Aosta and the Saint Bernard Passes; to the west, those leading through Pinerolo and the Col de Sestrières and Susa and the Cols of Mont Genèvre and Mont Cenis.
Just out of Turin on the road to Cuneo (which is perhaps more often called by its French name, Coni, for you are now heading straight for the frontier, a matter of but a half a hundred kilometres beyond) is Moncalieri, the possessor of a royal chateau where was born, in 1904, Prince Humbert of Piedmont, the present heir to the Italian throne.
When Italy’s present Queen Helena sojourned here after the birth of her son she took her promenades abroad en automobile and so came to be a partisan of the new form of locomotion as already had the dowager Queen before her. The latter may properly enough be called the automobiling monarch of Europe for she is heard of to-day at Aix-les-Bains, to-morrow at Paris or Trouville and the week after at Pallanza or Cadennabia, and in turn in Spain, at Marienbad, Ostend, Biarritz or Nice, and she always travels by road, and at a good pace, too.
This up-to-date queen’s predilection for the automobile in preference to the state coach of other days or the plebeian railway has doubtless had much to do with the development of the automobile industry in Italy. It has, too, made the gateway into Italy from the Riviera over the Col de Tende the good mountain road that it is. Those who pass this way – and it’s the only way worth considering from the South of France to the Italian Lakes – will have cause to bless Italy’s automobiling queen. The chiefs of state of Italy, France and Germany know how to encourage automobilism and all that pertains thereto better than those of Republican America or Monarchial Britain.
Carignano, twelve kilometres beyond Moncalieri, is famous for its silk industry and its beautiful women. We saw nothing of the former, but the latter certainly merit the encomium which has been bestowed upon them ever since the Chevalier Bayard remarked the gentilezza and beauty of the widow Bianca Montferrat, and fought for her in a tournament centuries ago.
Carmagnola, a half a dozen kilometres off the direct road, just beyond Carignano, takes much the same rank as the latter place. Neither are tourist points to the slightest degree, but each is delightfully unworldly and give one glimpses of native life that one may find only in the untravelled hinterland of a well known country. The peasant folk of Carmagnola are as picturesque and gay in their costume and manner of life as one can possibly expect to see in these days when manners and customs are changing before the new order of things. Here is the home of the celebrated Dance of the Carmagnole, a gyrating, whirling, dervish-like fury of a dance which makes a peasant girl of the country look more charming than ever as she swishes and swirls her yards of gold or silver neck beads in a most dazzling fashion. The French Revolution borrowed the “Carmagnole” for its own unspeakable orgies, by what right no one knows, for there is nothing outré about it when seen in its native land. Possibly some alien Savoyards, who may have joined their forces with the Marseilles Batallion, may have brought it to France with their light luggage – proverbially light, for the Savoyard has the reputation of always travelling with a bundle on a stick. Would that we touring automobilists could, or would, travel lighter than we do!
Racconigi, a half a dozen kilometres farther on, has another royal chateau, and, passing Saluzza, through the arch erected in memory of the marriage of Victor Amedeo and Christine of France, one arrives at Cuneo in thirty kilometres more. From Carmagnola to Cuneo direct, by Savigliano, is practically the same distance, but the other route is perhaps the more picturesque.
At Cuneo one has attained an elevation of some five hundred and thirty-five metres above sea level, the rise thence to the Col de Tende being eight hundred metres more, that is to say the pass is crossed at an elevation not exceeding 1,300 metres.
Cuneo’s Albergo Barra di Ferro (a new name to us for a hotel) accommodates one for the price of five francs a day and upwards, and gives a discount of ten per cent. to members of the Touring Club Italiano. These prices will certainly not disturb any one who can afford to supply a prodigal automobile with tires at the present high prices.
We climbed up from Cuneo to the Col, a matter of thirty-three kilometres of a very easy rise, in something less than a couple of hours, the last six kilometres, the steepest portion, averaging but a five per cent. grade.
On leaving Cuneo the road ascends very gradually, running along the valley of the Vermagnana to the foot of the Col where it begins to mount in earnest. Below is the great plain of Piedmont watered by the Po and its tributary rivers, while above rises the mass of the Maritime Alps, with Mount Viso as its crowning peak, nearly four thousand metres high. It is a veritable Alpine road but not at all difficult of ascent. About midway on the height one remarks the attempt to cut a tunnel and thereby shorten the route, an attempt which was abandoned long years ago. From the crest, the Col itself, one gets a view ranging from Mont Viso to Mont Rosa in the north and on the south even to the blue waters of the Mediterranean. For fully a third of the year, and often nearer half, the Col de Tende is cursed with bad weather and is often impassable for wheeled traffic in spite of the fact of its comparatively low elevation. The wind storms here are very violent.
From Tende the road winds down into the low French levels, and in this portion takes rank as one of the earliest of Alpine roads, it having been built by Carlo Emanuele I in 1591.
Down through the valley of the Torrent of the Roya glides the mountain road and, passing San Dalmazzo and numerous rock villages, a distinct feature of these parts, in sixteen kilometres reaches Breil, the first place of note on French territory.
We had our “triptych” signed at the Italian dogana fifteen kilometres beyond the brow of the mountain, at San Dalmazzo di Tenda, crossing on to French soil three kilometres farther on. The French douane is at Breil, at the sixty-sixth kilometre stone beyond Cuneo, and at an elevation of less than three hundred metres above the sea. Here we delayed long enough to have the douaniers check off the number of the motor, the colour of the body work, the colour of the cushions and numerous other incidentals in order that the French government might not be mulcted a sou. “Everything in order. Allons! partez;” said the gold braided official, and again we were in France.
At Breil the road divides, one portion, following still the valley of the Roya, slopes down to Ventimiglia in twenty kilometres, the other, in forty kilometres, arriving at Nice via the valley of the Paillon.
It is not all down hill after Breil for, before Sospel is reached, seventeen kilometres away, one crosses another mountain crest by a fairly steep ascent and again, after Sospel, it rises to the Col di Braus – this time over the best of French roads – to an elevation of over one thousand metres.
From Sospel a spur road leads direct to Menton but the Grande Route leads straight on to Nice, shortly after to blend in with the old Route d’Italie, linking up Paris with the Italian-Mediterranean frontier, a straight away “good road,” the dream of the automobilist, for a matter of 1,086 kilometres.
