Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Wintering in the Riviera: With Notes of Travel in Italy and France, and Practical Hints to Travellers
John Stuart Mill · en
To those intending to travel in Italy, great advantages are held
out by the railway companies in the shape of circular tour tickets
(_viaggi circulari_). The _Indicatore della Strada Ferrata_ contains a
list,[7] with plans of a large number of such tours, the tickets for
which are issued, enduring, according to the length of tour, from ten
to sixty days (which cannot be extended), at the large reduction of
45 per cent. upon the price which would otherwise be exigible. One of
these tours is, for example, a complete round of Italy—from Turin by
the west coast, embracing Florence and Rome to Naples, and thence by
the east coast by Ancona, Bologna, Venice, Milan, and back to Turin,
at a cost for first class of £7, 17s., and second and third classes
correspondingly low. This tour, for which sixty days are allowed,
enables the traveller to stop at any important town on the lines; and
all that is necessary is, at starting from each place, to get the
next station at which he means to stop scored through at the railway
window. To those whose time is limited, these circular tickets are
valuable, and they are procurable with Italian paper, so that the
benefit of exchange is got. Cook and Gaze issue tickets for the same
circular tours, and probably at the same price, although I suppose
they are generally in connection with tickets from London; but they
have, I understand, to be paid for in English money. They possess
the advantage, I believe, by no means to be undervalued, of having
all directions printed in English as well as Italian. The railway
companies issue their tickets at every important town on the line of
route to be travelled.
In France, likewise, there are for some parts circular tours, such as
from Paris to Bordeaux, Biarritz, the Pyrenees and back. Information on
the subject may be got in the _Indicateur_, or in the _Guides Diamant_
among the advertisements.
I would just add in connection with this subject, that it is said by
Bradshaw that return tickets are ‘almost universal abroad, and issued
upon terms far more liberal than any granted by our English lines.’
Although I have on various occasions taken day return tickets for short
trips, I have never yet found them to be any cheaper than the double
fare.
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In the course of a journey, what are called supplementary billets can
be procured through the guard, so as to enable a neighbouring place to
be visited by a side line. Thus, in going from Lyons to Marseilles, we
obtained supplementary tickets from Tarascon to Nismes by asking for
them when stopping at Valence, about the second station before reaching
Tarascon. This, especially looking to the peculiarities of foreign
lines, is a great convenience.
The Italian _Indicatore_ states that travellers may exchange at any
place to a higher class by paying difference of fare between the place
at which the transfer is effected and the terminus.
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