European Motoring

Greatly Improved Touring Conditions Prevail All Over the Continent

JOHN PRIOLEAU

AMERICAN motorists in Europe this year are finding conditions far more satisfactory than they were before the Great War. One after another, countries and districts are being reopened to tourists that have been closed for years, and with the exception of Russia, it is fairly safe to say that by 1926 you will all be able to drive, your cars anywhere you please.

The latest country to acknowledge the justice of the demands of motor travellers is Switzerland where, after many years of dispute between the various authorities, it has been decided that the Engadinc shall be open to cars. A year or two ago a few miles of roads were open to motorists but apart from this temporary accommodation, motorists in Switzerland had to leave out the whole of the Engadinc valley from their plans. Voting on the question was very close, something like 500 votes on a total of 18,000 deciding the fate of the issue.

Now that the more immediate terror of Bolshevism, Communism, Socialism and other variants of the same thing has lessened, the Government of Jugo-Slavia has relented from its uncompromising attitude of three years ago and has decided to admit the cars of foreign tourists. To my thinking this is of even greater importance than the concession of the Swiss Government. Switzerland is a perfectly delightful motoring country, it is true, but it is very small and probably more familiar to foreigners than any other in the world. It is nice to be able to drive one's car to the Engadinc instead of having to go by train, but the Engadinc has been one of the best known parts of what they call the Playground of Europe for a great many years. Jugo-Slavia, on the other hand, is new ground to the great majority of motor travellers on the Continent.

In the palmy days of that greatest of all motor trials, the Austrian Alpine Tour, one of the most spectacular climbs included in the itinerary was that over the Loibl Pass, which fills the sky between Klakenfurt, the capital of Carinthia and the road south to Trieste. Of all the mountain climbs in the whole wonderful range of the Alps, I am inclined to believe that the Loibl, comparatively short as it is, is the most picturesque. It is terribly steep, the gradient for most of the way being one in four, which simply means that any ordinarily geared car must climb the entire distance of the summit on bottom gear. I have a very lively recolthe appearance of the last mile. After innumerable hairpin bends of such steepness that one had to drive the car even on bottom speed absolutely mercilessly in order to get up at all, one suddenly saw what looked like a perfectly perpendicular road stretched like a string down the face of a cliff. It is at this moment that you will be well advised (no matter how powerful your car may be) to step with all your weight on the gas.

At the top of the Loibl you pass between two vast granite pillars and on the very hump of the Pass you can stand and look north over the smiling land of Austria as one knows it today, and south down an immense dark valley clothed in dense forest. The south side is reputed to be even more killing in its gradient than the north. The frontier between Austria and the new Kingdom of Jugoslavia is officially situated between these two granite pillars at the top of the Pass.

Motoring much south of Laibach was, and still is, I am sure, a pretty adventurous affair. Cars have for some years been able to reach the old Servian capital, Belgrade, but the greatest advantage American motorists would enjoy from having the freedom of the Jugo-Slavian roads is the reopening of the road down the Dalmatian Coast to Ragusa and Cattaro. Confirmed and unconvertible motor traveller as I am, I still think that the best way to see the towns along the amazing Eastern edge of the Adriatic is by steamer from Pola, simply because the towns themselves look so exquisite, each in its little bay. The high mountain roads behind them are certainly among the finest touring grounds in the world. It is entirely a land of adventure, and it is not much good your going there if many garages and wellequipped hotels are essential to your well-being for the lack of these is a permanent feature of the landscape. In return for this however, you will have the supreme joy of driving over roads which are nearly as innocent of other cars as were the by-roads of Europe fifteen years ago.

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Italy, especially the North, has made tremendous strides War as a serious competitor of France, Austria and Switzerland for the patronage of road-farers. Roads have been greatly improved and it is no longer true as it was before the War that you had to suffer in order to sec Italy in a car, and that it was wiser to leave your car on the other side of the frontier and do your sightseeing as best you could by train.