Evening star., 1935-12-22
.MotorTrips
In France
Need Nerve
knowledge of Tongue
and Customs, and
Funds Essential.
BY EDGAR ANsEL MoWRER.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
~ ARIS, December 21.-To get
- the best out of a motor trip
through France, the American
4 needs to possess an esthetic
and historical sense, a caSt-iron di-
gestion, a thick pocketbook and we'll
suspended, well-bolted, comfortable
car.
With these assets, to which a rudi-
mentary knowledge of the French Ian
guage and real good weather had bet
ter be added, such trip can be one
of life's greatest pleasures. Without
them the tourist may come away with
the superficial but annoying dislike
of the French that unfortunately
characterizes great many foreigners
who won't or can't take the trouble
to study this country thoroughly.
ORANGE is an old civilization, and
those looking for the primitive or
the very modern had better seek it
elsewhere. An interest in and if pos
sible some actual knowledge of his
tory open constant gates and make a
hundred place names familiar and at
tractive.
Unlike the Germans and the Swiss
and the Dutch, the French are poor
linguists. If a foreigner cannot speak
French they lose interest in him, nor
are they interested in any foreigner
unless the foreigner succeeds in
catching their attention as a human
being and individual.
But If they are not really hospit-
able, neither are they crooks. Par
simonious they are, but they will not
put themselves out to cheat the trav-
eler. In fact, they do not habitually
put themselves out for any one.
Therefore, they are not particularly
good hotelkeepers.
FRANCE is provided with an abund-
ance of hotels, both in the towns
and at numerous places along the
high roads. These vary greatly in
quality and price. There are grand
hotels, known internationally; road
houses called hostelries, second-rate
hotels, cheap taverns.
The finer hotels are often luxurious
Second-rate places economic on serv-
ice and proper plumbing But one and
all, these French hotels supply COM
Portable beds and variety, abundance
and quality of food and drink that is
unsurpassed.
A GASTRONOMIC tour of France
will be remembered for life by
anybody with a cultivated palate and
the organ to digest what he eats.
Hotel prices have come down con-
siderably. But food remains pre-
depression in price. The average for
eigner will find it difficult to obtain
anything simple or single and still
harder to obtain it quickly For to the
ma Jority of the French, eating is still
a rite, to ignore which stamps the
traveller as barbarian or boor.
Those who grow impatient if lunch
takes more than half an hour to serve
and eat had better go elsewhere.
Garage service is reasonably good
and mechanics are plentiful. But they.
too, are not cheap. Almost the chief
item in the budget of a French tour is,
however, gasoline. With their mania
for indirect taxes, the French have
laid a heavy tax on gas. 1t costs over
II cents q quart, Of which the govern
ment takes three ee-quarters.
The roads have in the last few years
become literally cluttered with in
Vulnerable trucks and passenger motor
busses Of the largest size, which park
on the roads at night and nearly
monopolize them by day, steadfastly
refusing to yield half of the narrow
highways to touring care incapable of
risking collision.
THERE are $4,000 miles of national
highways on a territory one-ff-
teenth the size of the United States.
More are being opened every year.
Many Of them are extremely straight