The “Taride” Maps
The four sheets are sold at eight francs per sheet, but they are better suited for wall maps than for portable practicability.
V.
A TRAVEL TALK
The travel routes to and through Provence and the Riviera are in no way involved, and on the whole are rather more pleasantly disposed than in many parts, in that places of interest are not widely separated.
The railroad is the hurried traveller’s best aid, and the all-powerful and really progressive P. L. M. Railway of France covers, with its main lines and ramifications, quite all of Provence, the Midi, and the Riviera.
Marseilles is perhaps the best gateway for the Riviera proper and the coast towns westward to the Rhône, and Avignon or Arles for the interior cities of Provence. Paris is in close and quick connection with both Arles and Marseilles by train express, train rapide, or the more leisurely train omnibus, with fares varying accordingly, and taking from ten to twenty hours en route, there being astonishing differences in time between the trains ordinaires and the trains rapides all over France. Fares from Paris to Arles are 87 francs, first class; 58 francs 75 centimes, second class; and 38 francs 30 centimes, third class; and from Paris to Marseilles, 96 francs 55 centimes, 65 francs 15 centimes, and 42 francs 50 centimes respectively. In addition, there are all kinds of extra charges for passage on the “Calais-Nice-Ventimille Rapide” and other trains de luxe, not overlooking the exorbitant charge of something like 70 francs for a sleeping-car berth from Paris to Marseilles—and always there are too few to go around even at this price.
From either Arles or Marseilles one may thread the main routes of Provence by many branches of the “P. L. M.” or its “Chemins Regionaux du Sud de France;” can penetrate the little-known region bordering upon the Étang de Berre and enter the Riviera proper either by Marseilles or by the inland route, through Aix-en-Provence, Brignoles, and Draguignan, coming to the coast through Grasse to Cannes or Nice.
The traveller from afar, from America, or England, or from Russia or Germany, is quite as well catered for as the Frenchman who would enjoy the charms of Provence and the Riviera, for there are through express-trains from Calais, Boulogne, Brussels, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Genoa. Now that the tide of travel from America has so largely turned Mediterraneanward, the south of France bids fair to become as familiar a touring ground as the Switzerland of old,—with this difference, that it has an entrance by sea, via Genoa or Marseilles.