It is in France, however, that the importance of waterways reaches its maximum. Almost every tourist's way from Paris, except that by Picardy, lay along a line which a river traversed; the windings of the Seine did not prevent it being quite as convenient as the road; while the Loire and the Rhone were far more so; and for approaching Paris, the Garonne was very frequently part of one route, even up to its mouth; the upper Loire of another. An even clearer idea of the importance and amount of usage of riverways in France is gained by considering how Lyons has maintained a high and steady degree of prosperity before, during, and since the rise and fall of Venice and of Amsterdam, and how at this period the only neglected parts of France were those which lay between the chief rivers, which have, in fact, so far dictated the course to be followed by the main road routes that the neglected parts of France are the same now as then. To Lyons the Rhone gave access to Italy, Spain, and Africa; twelve leagues away the Loire becomes navigable, and from Gien on the Loire was one day's journey to a tributary of the Seine, the Loing: which three rivers put Lyons in touch with North Spain, most of France and all northern Europe. Neither was Lyons very far from the Rhine and the Danube. In Spain alone were the rivers unused by the traveller. In southern Italy they were less used than in Roman times, when passenger traffic was customary on the Tiber and smaller rivers,[36] which certainly was not the case three hundred years ago; the disuse of the lower reaches of the Tiber is accounted for by the fear of the Turks, to prevent an attack on Rome by whom the mouth of the river was closed. In North Italy on the other hand, the Adige, Brenta, and Po are frequently mentioned; the Po, indeed, from Turin must have been as constantly in use as any river in Europe in proportion to its length. From Mantua to Ferrara in 1574[37] a boat sailed every night as a matter of course; between Mantua and Venice communication by water was regular in 1591, and even from Milan to Venice it was quite an ordinary thing to travel by the Po, finishing the journey along the Adige to Chioggia by means of a canal which linked up the two rivers. As for the Brenta, it had its own proverb, that the passenger boat (between Padua and Venice) would sink when it contained neither monk, student, nor courtesan, which is as much as to say that the tourist would always find company, as well as a boat, ready.