Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1925)

FEBRUARY 1925 Pichure s and Picture ?uer 19 K-i'p Abroad (?MDOLPH VALENTKNO On this road it had rained and the inevitable dust had settled down in peace and quietude. The road was practically a straight line, 300 or 350 kilometres from Milan to Bologna, on the via Emilia. This is one of theold Roman roads. Of course, it is nothing like the concrete roads we have in America, but thost old Roman roads are good roads for all that, and you can make good time on them. Naturally, too, there is not the traffic on them that makes motoring over the good roads in America so tedious and difficult. We stopped near Parma for luncheon. Whenever we struck a town, we sped through it. We didn't want to stop at any regulation hotels. Both of us are so tired of hotel food. We stopped, instead, at little wayside inns, where we got fresh spring chickens, marvellous bread, marvellous butter and marvellous wine. In Bologna, I had my first accident. Fortunately for me, it turned out to be humorous rather than serious. When we got to Bologna, we went through the town, and it was just at sunset that we arrived at the piazza. There was a telegraph pole there, and the telegraph pole was in the shade. The pole was painted a greyish colour, the same as the ground, and I was just crawling along ("for a change), looking around, when Natacha said loudlv, " LOOK OUT ! LOOK OUT !" I said blankly, " WHERE?" And, so saying, / was into the pole ! I only bent the fender, but I got sore because it was my only accident, and what with all the criticism of my driving, I was sort of pridefully bent upon achieving a record for myself. It * » is ■ never rains but it pours. I had another little accident the same day. I must have been more than ordinarily daydreaming, or scenery-blind. For, as we were going along one of the country roads, I ran right into a little cart with an ancient crone driving it. I did no harm at all as a matter of fact. And in common justice to myself and my own skill at the wheel, I must record that this especial circumstance was the fault of another autoist, and not mine. He came steaming along behind me. I tried to avoid him sharply, skidded, and ran into the old lady's small cart. I hit the side of the cart with my first wheel. The old woman started cursing me in Italian. She may be there cursing me yet. And if her vocabulary of profanity and ferocity of her anger arc any omens, she probably is. One of the delights of motoring in Italy is that the country changes with every province you enter. The customs change. The types of people change. The way they dress changes. Even the breed of animal changes. I7verything. As we entered Tuscany, we noted these things particularly. I am ever on the lookout for animals, which so nearly became my lifework, and here I pointed out a bull with very long horns and of a peculiar, greyishwhite colouring. We met a cart with two of these bulls on the road and I stopped and had my picture made between the two of them. It was growing late by this time and we kept going steadily after this brief stop, because I had to cross the Appenines. They are even worse than the Alps. In the Alps there are not the short hairpin turns that onefinds in the Appenines. I couldn't enjoy very much of the scenery. My scenery consisted in the wheel of the car and keeping my eye strictly upon the stretch of road immediately before me. We finally arrived in Florence at eleven o'clcck at night, covered with layers of thick, white dust and utterly exhausted. Of Florence, city of lovers and Art, I shall write to-morrow! My arrival in Florence was not what one would describe as living up to that beautiful city. It is another spot on this earth where one should arrive either on wings, so