EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS
Other tourists tell the same story: "Accommodations all over the Continent" are "very indifferent; … it is scarcely possible for an invalid to sleep at any inn out of a great town without suffering."[1] Where the general level was so low no forethought could enable a traveler to make sure of a satisfactory lodging,[2] though he might send a servant ahead to engage the best that was to be had. As might be expected, there was great variety in the character of the accommodations to be found in different parts of the Continent, and an accurate general characterization is therefore almost impossible. Holland, with its dense population, its standards of neatness, and its diffused wealth, is at one extreme, and Italy, with its medieval hill towns affording filthy beds and uneatable food, is at the other.
The information supplied to travelers in eighteenth-century guide-books is often very suggestive, and nowhere more so than in the passages relating to inns. We read:—"Travellers who go post should never permit the postillion to drive them to such houses as he pleases; almost all of them have secret motives to prefer some to others; therefore it would be prudent to inquire of the post-masters, or inn-keepers of the first reputation, for a list of the best houses of accommodation."[3] "A traveller should always lodge in the best inn, because, upon the whole, a good lodging will not cost him much more, than if he had chosen an indifferent one, and he will at least be better served, with an additional secvuity to his property, which is not always the case in inferior inns."[4] "As soon as travellers enter into an inn, they should immediately agree for the price of the room, dinner, supper, firing, etc., and never neglect his useful precaution; otherwise they will often be obliged to pay for their negligence in that respect an extravagant price, especially in Holland and Italy."[5]
Beds were of varied character in the countries usually visited; so varied, indeed, that travelers, up to the end of the eighteenth century, especially in Germany and Italy, were accustomed to carry their own bedding.[6] And even where this might not be required, certain precautions
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- ↑ Starke, Letters from Italy, ii, 257.
- ↑ Young speaks of "the bad accommodations even in the high road from London to Rome. On the contrary, go in England to towns that contain 1500, 2000, or 3000 people, in situations absolutely cut off from all dependence, or almost the expectation of what are properly called travellers, yet you will meet with neat inns, well dressed and clean people keeping them,
- ↑ Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travellers, p. 66.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 66.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 68–69.
- ↑ "It being necessary, on the Continent, to carry your own sheets, pillows and blankets, when you travel, I would advise the doubling them up daily of a convenient size, and then placing them in the carriage by way of cushions, making a leather sheet of the envellope." Starke, Letters from Italy, ii, 265, 266.
