Chapter V: Part 5

The Customs regulations in France are not at all stringent, and tourists are now almost invariably allowed free entry with their machines at the chief ports, provided they can prove themselves to be tourists, and possess a sufficient knowledge of the French language to explain the fact intelligibly. Otherwise, a deposit of fifty or more francs is demanded; but if a receipt be obtained, the amount, with a very trifling deduction, will be returned if the tourist leaves the country within six months. If one, however, proposes to go for a few days into Germany, Belgium, or Spain, it is well to obtain a _Passavant Descriptif_, a description of the machine, which costs a penny, and will permit the bearer to return without any other formalities than showing this document on again passing the Customs officers. It can be obtained at the frontier stations by which one leaves the country, and is good at any other point of entry. A passport is of very little use, but some papers of identification, if possible French, may be indispensable for any one who sketches or photographs. Sketching and photographing are prohibited within a circle of 10 kilometres of any fortifications.

French hotels are usually reasonable and excellent. When they are extortionate, they are nearly always bad.

Parcels Post is about as unreliable as in any other part of the world. Clothes forwarded in this way are subject to the same uncertainty of delivery, as regards time, as in England.

Suggestions as to distances to be ridden, clothes to be worn, and so on, are quite unnecessary, since any one who has toured at all is usually a law unto himself in these matters, and will accept no advice.

But as the roads are the best in the world, the people the most polite, unless a head wind catches him, the tourist should have a delightful time if he keeps to the right of the road, and provides himself with a lamp and a bell.

Ballantyne Press

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE HANSON & CO.

_Edinburgh and London_

FOOTNOTES:

[A] For the cycler it suffices to say that it was an overgrown “Bayliss & Thomas.”

[B] We have never ceased regretting that we did not go to see _Crasmagne en Amérique_.