Europe from a Motor Car

by Russell Richardson

The annual dues of the Rheinische Automobile Club amounted to forty marks. Membership in an organization of this kind is necessary to secure the triptyques which are so indispensable to the motorist whose itinerary includes several countries of Europe. The usefulness of this important document has been described so often that we do not feel called upon to make further comment here. Our international driving permit based upon the special license issued by the state was also secured for a small fee from the automobile club above mentioned.

Among the incidental expenses, the cost of repairs is apt to figure largely, particularly when one is motoring along mountain highways. Such services are much cheaper in Europe than in the United States. In our case the item was so small as to be almost negligible. The car was so carefully overhauled and inspected before leaving the factory that we suffered little inconvenience or delay. Our tire troubles were limited to a single puncture. Continental tires in the rear and Excelsior in the front gave excellent service. Notwithstanding the wear and tear of mountain motoring, we found it necessary to use only one of the two reserve tires.

Gasoline was everywhere obtainable. In Germany and France the price is about thirty-seven cents a gallon, but in Austria and Spain it is much higher, generally approximating eighty cents a gallon. In Italy, where bargaining is necessary, the price usually dropped from eighty cents to less than forty-eight cents a gallon. A Bosch magneto greatly increased the speed and climbing ability of the car, and enabled us to average about twenty-one miles to every gallon of gasoline. In France the cost of this necessary article is not fixed. Neighboring towns often showed a difference of several cents in the cost per gallon. But although the price is not uniform, the fine quality is, and always gave excellent results. As a part of our equipment we carried as reserve a five-gallon sealed can of gasoline and a similar quantity of oil. On these it was occasionally necessary to pay a duty of a couple of cents at the numerous octroi stations in France. The inconvenience of these imposts was usually more burdensome than the amount of the tax. For our oil, which would have cost about forty cents a gallon in the United States, we averaged one dollar and ten cents a gallon.

Our hotel bills were not high. We had expected to find them much higher. Two dollars or two dollars and a half was sufficient as a rule to cover dinner, chamber, and breakfast. For instance, our rooms at the Hôtel de France cost one dollar each, the dinner table d'hôte seventy-five cents each, and breakfast thirty cents, the usual prices which secured us satisfactory accommodations nearly everywhere in France. Every hotel had its garage, a fact which we did not always find to be true of the hotels in Germany. The garage was often not much more than a shed or lean-to, but it always offered the shelter and protection necessary for our one-or two-night stops. Sometimes there was a garage charge of one franc (nineteen and one half cents) a day, but this was exceptional. If the car was washed we were expected to pay from thirty-five to fifty cents for this extra service. The scale of prices in Germany and Austria was possibly twenty per cent higher, but nowhere was there any attempt to take advantage of the fact that we were foreigners.

The motor tourist is such a familiar sight abroad that the stopping of a motor car before a provincial hotel does not excite unusual interest. It is rather an everyday occurrence, an accustomed detail of the day's routine. France especially, more than any other country in Europe, has become a land of motor tourists. The large well-to-do class turns naturally to motoring for recreation and diversion.

The Frenchman practices thrift in his hours of leisure and travel as well as in his business. This fact probably explains in great part the comparatively low level of hotel charges to be found in that country. Contrary to the popular idea, there are not two sets of charges, one for the European and a higher one for the American. We were never expected to pay for services that were not rendered in more than ample measure. On the contrary, we had daily opportunities to observe the effort made to give us the best possible service for the prices charged. This was true not only of the hotels but of the restaurants as well. Of course, for a dollar a day we did not expect to have a chambre de luxe. It is really a constant surprise to see how much one can get in the way of clean, comfortable rooms and appetizing meals for a small outlay.

France is a country by itself in this respect. There is perhaps no country where the traveler can get so much for his money. In no other land of Europe can one motor so cheaply. It is always possible to avoid the big towns as sleeping places and at meal times, and yet run no risk of not enjoying the finest cooking and a comfortable night's lodging. Austria is the most expensive country for the motorist. Spain and central and southern Italy are so little patronized by motor traffic that they do not need to be included in our comparison.

The consideration of incidental expenses brings us to the question of tipping, without doubt the most perplexing and the most misunderstood of all the problems that confront the foreign motorist in Europe. Long before his steamer touches the shore of the Old World, he has visions of an extended line of servants standing with outstretched hands to receive the expected shower of coins. For the majority of tourists it is almost an ordeal to leave a European hotel. How often we have heard the question, "What shall I give?" The average American has such an instinctive sense of fairness, of wanting to do the right thing, that a matter of this kind assumes an importance out of all proportion to the value of the tip. He is willing to be liberal; on the other hand, he is not eager to pose as a philanthropic and charitable institution created to satisfy the needs of every hotel employee who says "Guten Tag" or "Bon jour" to him when he enters the hotel. The trouble is that in borrowing this custom from Europe we have so Americanized it that we find it difficult to get the European viewpoint and to adapt ourselves readily to the practice as it exists to-day across the water. The American voyageur is so accustomed to doing things in a large way that it is not easy for him to appreciate the European system of small percentages. His common mistake is to give larger tips than are expected and overlook the small tips which do not seem to be so important. He hesitates to give a small tip, and in such cases would prefer to give none at all.

We have read somewhere the story of a Frenchman who was visiting the United States for the first time. He ate a sixty-cent meal in a New York restaurant. Following the custom in Paris, he left five per cent of the bill, three cents, for the waiter. Many of us could probably confess to an equal uncertainty and helplessness in the presence of our first tipping experience in Europe. Baedeker's classic rule of ten per cent of the total amount of the bill seems strangely inadequate when a traveler has stayed only one night at a hotel and finds that his bill is about two dollars. The problem of dividing twenty cents so that every one will be satisfied is a task that he would willingly turn over to somebody else. As a matter of fact, while there is no arbitrary rule, it does not take long to discover that the pourboire and Trinkgeld are fixed and permanent institutions, as solid in their reality as the Credit Lyonnais or the Reichsbank. One is expected to give at least something, even if the service rendered has been merely nominal. The French and German systems of coinage, with their 5-centime and 10-pfennig pieces, fit in so conveniently to the European standards of tipping. Judging from our experience, the tourist will be most quickly at ease who observes the custom as it is practiced by the inhabitants of the country, and then makes his own scale of tips slightly larger. Foreigners are expected to be a little more liberal. The quality of service received will ordinarily more than compensate for this slight increase. In Valence, where we stayed only one night, the bill, including chamber, dinner, and breakfast, amounted to twenty francs for two people. Our tips were itemized as follows: