Travelling around

The house in La Villa near Bagni di Lucca, Italy,
where Montaigne had rented some rooms

When I publish this blog, I have just returned from a holiday in Norway. Norway is one of my favourite holiday destinations because of its beautiful landscapes and nature, so I have been there already many times and I have visited most of the country during the years, from Kristiansand to the North Cape. Only the eastern part of Finnmark in the extreme northeast is waiting yet for my visit. In 2020 my wife and I wanted to make a round trip in Sweden and Norway, to Stockholm and Oslo. However, we had to cancel it because of the pandemic. But at last we could go to Scandinavia again, although now we had chosen another destination: the region between Kristiansand on the south coast and Oslo.
Like often in the summer, we made a round trip without any specific planning. We had chosen the region, so we had booked a ferry to Kristiansand, and we had tickets for the opera in Oslo. But this was all we had planned before we left, so we had to look yet for places where to stay once we were there. It was a bit risky, for most of the time we made such a round trip we had our tent with us and then there is always a place on a camping site where you can stay. But now we had left our tent at home. If you need a camping hut or a hotel room, it’s always possible that they are already fully booked. In the end, it appeared not to be a problem.
I’ll spare you the details of the trip, for this is a philosophical blog and not a travel blog. Anyway, travelling around without a clear planning, is what I like most. However, I would not be a philosopher, if I would not think of the famous journey that Montaigne made in 1580 and 1581. He travelled from the north of France to Switzerland and then via Munich and Augsburg in Germany through Austria to Bagni di Lucca, Florence and Rome in Italy. From Rome he made also a round trip through central Italy. Montaigne returned to France only, when the king had ordered him to do so, because he had appointed him mayor of Bordeaux. Montaigne did so reluctantly and he didn’t hurry to reach Bordeaux.
Montaigne kept a travel diary and so we know much about this trip. From this diary, we get the impression that the journey was an unplanned round trip, in the way I often make them, though the French Montaigne specialist Philippe Desan thinks that Montaigne had a secret mission. Of course, both at the same time is also possible. Anyway, from his diary we know that Montaigne wanted to go to Rome and that his trip had a medical purpose as well, for he wanted to visit medicinal springs, hoping that he would be cured of his problem of kidney stones. So, Montaigne stayed not only several months in what he saw as the capital of the world, but also twice in Bagni di Lucca, a known spa resort in Tuscany. Montaigne stayed also in some other places he liked, so his journey was a bit like my round trips, although mine are usually only very short compared with his travel. But doesn’t everything go faster now than four centuries ago? Think of the current means of transport: In Montaigne’s time, you could not go faster than a horse could run. And when you travelled a long distance, you didn’t go much faster whether you travelled by horseback or on foot. Montaigne tells us in his dairy that, while he and his co-travellers used horses – friends and his younger brother travelled with him during a part of the trip –, their servants walked. Even if they had taken the shortest way to Rome, for this company the trip would have taken, say, two weeks, while nowadays you can do it within a few hours by air or in one or two days by car (depending on where you start in France).
What always has been an enigma for me is: How did Montaigne and his company find their overnight accommodation? Note that Montaigne’s company consisted of some twenty persons. When reading the diary, it never seemed to be a problem (actually Montaigne tells us only where he stayed himself; not where the others slept). Telephone and Internet did not yet exist, so did Montaigne reserve his accommodation by letter? Probably not, for his journey was not well planned, so he didn’t know when to arrive. Moreover, postal services in those days were slow, which could make booking an inn by letter a complicated affair. Did Montaigne (who was the leader of the company) send a servant to the next stop to reserve a place in the local inn? But what if the inn was already fully booked? If another company had already occupied the local inn? Maybe it was not difficult to find a place to stay in a big town like Augsburg, but Montaigne tells us also that he stayed in Seefeld, a little town in Austria, which had probably only one inn (Once when I was in Seefeld, I saw there an inn that was already 500 years old. I wonder whether Montaigne has stayed there). Maybe the inn in Seefeld had enough free rooms, when Montaigne arrived (and maybe the servants slept in a barn or somewhere else in Seefeld). But did it never happen that there was neither place in the local inn nor elsewhere nearby? When your fastest means of transport are your legs or a horse, you cannot go elsewhere to look for a place when the night is falling. But that’s a risk, when making a round trip.