A trip to Europe continues....

He also advised him to go for grape cure treatment to Verona in north Italy and to the springs of Spa. For all this the expert only charged £5 in English money. This was somewhat surprising to me because we had expected that a specialist of world renown would at least charge £ 25 to £ 30. He offered to examine me also free of charge but I thankfully declined his offer as I was feeling quite hale and hearty!

In the hotel where we stayed in Vienna, we found to our dismay that the daily charges amounted to Rs. 75! We decided to shift elsewhere. Another Indian was also staying in that hotel and at the breakfast table we compared notes. He told us that he had arranged for his stay at a private home at a much cheaper rate, about Rs. 20 a day. We asked him to help us to get accommodation there and he did so and we stayed there for a week or so.

In Vienna we parted company. Lala Jagan Nath Aggarwal went for his treatment to Spa and I flew from Vienna to Berlin. I knew no German, but one of the hotel porters knew English and he helped me to go round Berlin and visit various places of interest. There I got acquainted with a young man from Cairo. He also knew no German, so we went together to different places of interest.

Of course Thomas Cook and Sons always took us round on the site-seeing trips. The palace of Kaiser Wilhelm—from the balcony of which he had proclaimed the First World War—proved well worth visiting. It had become a museum.

After spending a few days in Berlin, I went to Holland on my way to England. We crossed the Channel during the night. I had secured a sleeping berth. On landing I took the train to London where Mr. Mehra, an Indian solicitor, received me at the Victoria Terminus.


to be continued...