On November 28, 1783, Giacomo and Francesco Casanova arrived in Frankfurt on Main. It was freezing cold. They took up quarters in the "Roman Emperor". In their own four-seat, closed car, coming from Paris, they had just completed 660 kilometers in 5 days. In the end, a drunken postilion overturned the car, with Giacomo injuring his left shoulder. Immediately he had a doctor come. Then he sat down and wrote a detailed letter to the Abbate Eusebio della Lena in Vienna in which he announced that he and his brother would arrive in Vienna for the next ten or twelve days; They wanted to take the road via Regensburg and Linz.

    In summer 1994, Helmut Watzlawick sent me this letter, the only source for the exact further course of the journey. I read it and could not believe my luck. With that it was clear that one of my ancestors, the great-great-grandfather of my grandmother Anna Günther, and postmaster of Emskirchen (penultimate station before Nuremberg) Johannes Eckart (1725 - 1790), had very probably made acquaintance with the brothers Casanova. How knows I from this postmaster (photo, with his wife Christiane, below left the inn) and then owner of today still almost original preserved inn "Old Post Golden Stag"?


   

    In the cities I parked my car preferably in the center to sleep, because there is always a bistro and a rouge ordinaire to the cozy end of the day. Of course, I also took a hotel, if the circumstances required, or I was invited, as here in Pasiano.

    There was not much to discover in Pasiano di Pordenone. After all, Villa Gozzi was still standing in Visinale, but the forest of Cecchini had disappeared, through which Casanova drove back to Pasiano with the farmer's pretty bride and seduced her in the car during a thunderstorm. I continued exploring the area and became aware of a stately manor. It was lonely between Pasiano and Mansuè.

    The property turned out when approaching as the hotel "Villa Luppis". Glad to have discovered something pretty, I went in to maybe drink a coffee. A gentleman and a lady came to meet me and greeted me warmly. What leads me to this area? They asked me. I immediately moved out with Casanova, who had been here and reported a lot about it. I would explore his travels and would like to write a book about it. The gentlemen knew perfectly well that Casanova was here and were very pleased with my plan. They now introduced themselves as the owners of the estate, Stefania and (Conte, as I later learned) Giorgio Ricci Luppis. Now we sat down, I got my coffee and we chatted mainly in English about Casanova, and also about poor Lucia. Finally, they asked me if I would not take a room for the duration of my stay, I was cordially invited. I gladly accepted the offer.
    I was completely convinced that they were treating me not as hoteliers but as private persons, so I should get the room for nothing. Accordingly, I behaved restrained, I have taken no meals in the hotel and was away during the day anyway (I visited, for example, from there the carriage museum of Villa Manin in Passariano). After two days, I said goodbye and thanked them for the hospitality. I was even allowed to take a picture of them. In the next edition of my handbook they were listed under the category "Acknowledgments" and are still there today.


    My naive nature reappeared three years later. When I drove there with the Casanovist Barbara Evers through Friuli, we looked for a hotel in the evening. I suggested the nearby Hotel Villa Luppis, and looked forward to seeing it again and Mr. and Mrs. Ricci Luppis. We soon sat comfortably in the lobby with a glass of Prosecco in hand, and I asked for the Conte or his wife. It appeared a lady, a short exchange of words, unfortunately, no room would be free. Today I realize that at the time I should have asked if I owe them anything.

    In the description of his escape in 1756 Casanova mentions that he had passed Feltre at the end, then the border fortress to Trento "La Scala", whereupon he soon found a post station from which he could drive to Borgo Valsugana. My trip to Pasiano was also to explore the escape route, and so I also attentively looked at the old pictures and engravings in the Hotel Villa Luppis. And, behold, there was an old map with "La Scala", located on the road from Feltre to Primolano. This place was station of the post road from Venice to Trento over Borgo Valsugana.

    A few days later I drove through the still well-preserved fortress, or next to it (photo). Before, I had taken in Fiera di Primiero at the Sartoris (they will be back soon) a good old friend as a passenger back to Heidelberg: Our neighbor in the Scheffelstrasse of Heidelberg since 1962 and mother of my best friend Karl, Mrs. Evi Schöfer.


    Evi Schöfer (née Wichmann, Dresden, Vienna, Meran, Heidelberg, 1917 - 2001) was a thoroughly lady left over from the Ancien Régime. She went to the Heidelberg Stadttheater or the Nationaltheater in Mannheim almost every evening, to a concert, a lecture, to the German-American Society. When she did not go out, she had guests in her home in the evening, opera singers, musicians, writers, etc. By the way, in the house of Schöfer I gave a concert in the seventies. I played the French Suite No. 5 in G major by J S Bach on the old wing from Dresden. The piece was relatively easy, though, and I did not always keep up with the intended pace.


    Evi Schöfer (photo, with Myrto Kyriazi and me) spoke good Italian, traveled a lot (including with her car, a VW Beetle), about to the Festivals in Bayreuth and Bregenz (then visiting my parents). She knew people all over the world. She contacted them immediately when one of her friends wanted to go somewhere and ask for a recommendation. For me it was also about cheap or free to find accommodation, with sometimes longer stays with friends Evi's or their daughters (to pander did she also like) in Paris, Taormina, Lanzarote, Altea, Seville and Thessaloniki enabled or at least easier made. In particular, the reconnaissance of the old post roads in all the countries where Casanova was (unfortunately, I was not in Poland, the Baltic States and Russia), would have gone without her, but not so funny. 

    I have never been outside Europe. It was not necessary, because the world came to Evi, and I was often there. For example 1971. Just then the boss of Volkswagen Peru, Mr. Kohler, had died. His widow Ilse, a friend of Evi, and her daughter Andrea had left Lima and then bought a house near Heidelberg. They came regularly to tea in the house Schöfer. By chance, I was there once. Soon after, I drove daughter Andrea in her VW Beetle to Altea (Alicante province), where the Kohlers also had a house.

    Even then, I paid attention to the "inns to the post stage", because I already had a "post card", so a map of the postal roads and stages (photo). From Chalons-sur-Saone on we drove only on the same roads to Valencia, which Casanova had also used. Twenty years later I made my first big trip on Casanova's footsteps on these streets as well.


    In our hotel in Beaune I sent myself to deepen our fresh acquaintance if possible. Lying together in bed, Andrea burst into tears and confessed to me that she had fallen in love in Nepal, in Katmandu, with a young, wealthy, but unfortunately heroin addicted American, and still had to think about him. "I'm going to become the madness' fat booty," she groaned constantly, torn between an old and a new friend.
    The next day, I called her mother, who was already in Altea, and told her about what had happened, and expressed my intention to go back to Heidelberg immediately. Andrea could go on alone. "For God's sake, Pablo, do not do that, I implore you, drive her here, I'm still there, and it'll be alright somehow!" I saw that. Andrea, still on the verge of a nervous breakdown, was of course happy too. We visited Beaune and then drove on through Burgundy and the Rhone valley via Nimes to Béziers, where we stayed overnight. In Altea everything went really well. Andrea soon married a professor from the University of Frankfurt and got two children.

    I became a Casanovist like that. In January 1990, I decided to resume my studies. A new car had to be suitable for this purpose, again as a student; I had my Charlotte on February 13th. In March, I borrowed the Grand Casanova biography from Rives-Childs in the public library. There was also a contribution by Helmut Watzlawick about Casanovists. I was thrilled with this interesting job and the decision about my study object was made. Now I wanted to explore Casanova's travels and, above all, find out what a "voiture anglaise", Casanova's favorite touring car, was.

    In the fall of 1991, I planned to move away from Heidelberg into the near countryside. Until I knew exactly where, I finally wanted to go on "Casanova Tour", combined with a longer stay somewhere. 
    So I went to Evi Schöfer and told her about my travel project. She asked where I was going. I replied that did not matter, Casanova had been almost everywhere. "Then go to the Sartoris in Barcelona, ​​the woman is in Primiero right now and would like someone to cook for her husband and daughter," she said, picking out the phone number. Mrs. von Sartori was very excited that I would like to take over cooking and signed up.
    A few days later I drove to my parents, who, by the way, always supported me with all my plans, though often after some hesitation, but then always. They now lived near Lindau / Bodensee. On October 6, 1991, I drove off.
    I slept in my car in Morges on Lake Geneva, poststation, at the harbour and took breakfast in a café  . Then I drove via Rolle and Nyon to Geneva, and so on, Aix-les-Bains, Chambéry, Valence, Nimes to Agde, deviating from the post road because I wanted to the sea. Then through Béziers and Narbonne, and again along the beach, going around Perpignan, I came to St-Cyprien-Plage where I had my car repaired: V-belt and breaker contacts, 180 FF. I stayed there as well. Once on the road along the sea, I drove in Portbou to Spain; I took the post road via La Jonquera, like Casanova, on the way back.


    In the evening I arrived at Castelldefels, a town just south of Barcelona. Sartoris lived in a house high above the sea at the end of a street (photo). 
    On the postcard of the replica of the war galley Don Juan d'Austria's to my parents of October 13th is written: 
"Dear Parents, I'm not writing letters yet, so this nice card - I'll see the ship soon. Barcelona is a very beautiful city. But also the life here in Castelldefels (20 km south) is very pleasant and easy, I shop, cook sometimes, go for a walk with a nice dog, go sightseeing, etc. Mr. Sartori and Vera are very nice and uncomplicated. Many lovely greetings, Hartmut".
    In addition, I only add: Mrs. von Sartori obviously only wanted me to represent her a little bit with her husband and daughter. After all, there was no shortage of domestic help. And it should be mentioned that the fourteen-year-old daughter Vera was shocked at first by my sight; she had understandably expected a young man. After all, she gradually got used to me, especially since I served her and her school friend as a chauffeur on their appointments. We three even went to the opera; unfortunately there was only the "Idomeneo" that evening, and not for example the "Figaro". 
    After four happy weeks for us all, Mr. von Sartori, director at Seat, gave me a present to say goodbye, which he had received from Benteler (automotive engineering), a money-bag made of genuine leather. I still use it today. 

    For the return trip, a visit to Aix-en-Provence was scheduled. This is a wonderful city, but I also looked at the Chateau Eguilles, where Casanova met the Marquis d'Argens several times in February and March 1769. This, chamberlain and longtime friend of Frederick the Great, had arrived there two months ago on leave from Berlin. Casanova describes this amiable epicure and hypochondriac in detail and very accurately (as I can say since my 50th birthday in 1993, because my parents gave me the Manesse book "My dear Marquis!" with the correspondence of the two during the Seven Years' War). D'Argens was now really sick, could no longer return to Berlin to the chagrin of Old Fritz and already died two years after his meetings with Casanova.
 
    Then finally Henriette's turn came. I too wanted to find her country house. After all, I found "La Croix d'Or" (photo), the turnoff that Casanova and Marcolina took to get to Henriette's "Chateau". Then I photographed some nice country estate, drove to Marseille, on the highway to Tortona, where Casanova with Henriette got through and I froze terribly in my car at night. With sunshine and clear air I drove back to my parents via the San Bernardino and the Via Mala.

    The pretty estate I presented as the most probable of Henriette in my slide lecture "Henriette, or The Secret of the Golden Cross" on February 29, 1992. The attention of my guests was considerable, especially as I mentioned the customs between the sexes in the 18th century and also displayed an original painting, undoubtedly self-considered by Casanova, from my recently purchased antique edition of the "Académie des Dames" (photo). 

    
    But serious topics were well received, too. What traveling carriages looked like back then, and how the postal system worked with its stations, which were mainly used for changing horses. How many inns to the post there are still, and that Casanova often traveled through our environment, more precisely, through the area within Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Mainz and - Oggersheim. At the mention of this place, the audience burst into laughter; everyone knew that Chancellor Helmut Kohl came from this village and persisted in his residence. Whether you know more about the lineage of Kohl? Could Casanova have had his hands on it? I am sure that everyone present still remembers Oggersheim as an important crossroads.


    Of all the post houses I find that in Radicofani most beautiful and fascinating. And that's how I got there. I continue to write entirely in the style of Casanova, taking every opportunity to adorn myself with the acquaintance of eminent personalities, especially the nobility.
    My goals of the following journey were not at all in Italy, but were Dresden, Dux, Prague and especially Vienna. First I registered in Frankfurt with Karin Freifrau von Göler zu Ravensburg. She and her husband Peter Thomas (the right ones on the photo, at my matriculation party in 1970) lived in their house, one of the few not devastated by world war II, opposite the Paulskirche, where it goes to the Roman Square, a whole floor, furnished predominantly in the style of Louis XVI, atmospheric so appropriate to Casanova.


Karin had met my friend Peter, law student and pianist, at a carnival ball in the house of Evi Schöfer and soon after married. The celebration took place in her castle in Schatthausen. After the yes vote in the church, I played the theme of Bach's Goldberg Variations on the organ. I sometimes stayed with them recently, because in Frankfurt is also the German Postal Museum. They were very interested in my Casanova studies. In 1992 Peter gave me his personal computer from the year before; for me that was the first computer, and of course great for writing the planned book.

    The next day I drove via Eisenach to Dresden. There they had just begun to rebuild the Frauenkirche. The building director, Eberhard Burger, also showed me the recently uncovered altar, which was still fairly well preserved. Someone had already put a flower on a charred wooden floor of the altar (photo). Thirteen years later I was in the finished Frauenkirche. I stayed in the post station of Pirna-Zehista, on the way to Teplitz, which Casanova had taken so often.


    In Dux I visited the Waldstein palace and stayed overnight with a woman I had met in the evening in the bistro, because she could offer me a lockable garage for my car. 
    I glimpsed Prague, but I did not want to miss the sight of the opera house, in which Don Giovanni, whose libretto was, as is well known, co-designed by Casanova himself, was first performed. The road to Vienna was as authentic as it was in the eighteenth century, because it was narrow and not much new was built in the villages. I also thought of Morike's delightful novella portraying Mozart's and his wife's journey to Prague in their own car.

    I liked Vienna best because I was immediately promoted to a professor there, and occasionally to a doctor. This happened already in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, where I was registered with Hofrat (court-councilor) Dr. Georg J. Kugler. He had not only published as a car researcher, but was also director of the "Wagenburg" in the palace Schönbrunn, so the museum of the body and court coaches of the Habsburg emperors. I handed him my book, it was still called "Casanova's Travels".
    I got to know Hofrat Kugler as co-editor and co-author of the important book "Axis, Wheel and Car". His contribution was titled: "The carriage from the beginning of the 18th century until the appearance of the automobile". There was also a photo of the "Lister Chaise" in Halifax, the type of car that I soon identified as Casanova's "voiture anglaise". However, Mr. Kugler's article did not deal with either this car or the Post Chaises and Post Chariots at all; he really did not know about their meaning. He valued the new land I had entered there by researching the "carriages of everyday use" instead of the representative, artistically valuable court and body car as usually the other car researchers. The Hofrat took active part and promoted me in every respect. It happened even more.
    Impressed by Casanova's "Histoire de ma Vie" as an authentic source for carriage research, he asked me to buy the now out-of-print Brockhaus-Plon complete edition, and I would then get the necessary amount refunded. I did that immediately. The memoirs are now in the world-famous KHM in Vienna because the director of the Wagenburg considered them indispensable for his library.
    Then, on another visit to Councilor Kugler, I asked him if there was an exhibition to be held with the major 18th-century tourist cars still in Europe - almost all of them Post Chariots. To my astonishment, he took up the plan, and soon wrote to all his colleagues in the museums who came into question, and asked for loan of the exhibits we had selected. The exhibition took shape more and more and should take place in 1998, to coincide with the Casanova year. But of all the Shibden Hall Museum in Halifax wanted their "Lister Chaise" - it should be the highlight of the exhibition in the center - do not send because it can not be exposed to any risk as a national cultural asset of the first order. Without this car, so to speak "Casanova's car", the exhibition of Hofrat Kugler was considered no longer really worthwhile and canceled.


    So I handed him my manual. Then we drove to the "Wagenburg" of palace Schönbrunn (photo; my Charlotte is the one on the right). After visiting the museum we went on to the depot and the restoration workshops. Of all the interesting things that were to be seen there, I mention only that I was allowed to examine and touch the war calash in which Napoleon drove to the battle of Austerlitz. During the fighting, of course, he rode his horse, and after the victorious outcome of the battle, he was reported the strong damage of his car, he gave it up, and so the Austrians came into the possession of this trophy.

    Returning again, the Hofrat accompanied me through the departments of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which I wanted to visit. Then he introduced me as Professor Pablo Günther to his designated successor, Dr. (art history) Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner. From her book on the Hetaries in Renaissance Rome, I learned of Michel de Montaigne's travel diary; a great discovery for me. I assure you that to this day I know of no broader, more authentic sources of travel than the "Journal de voyage" and the "Histoire de ma Vie". 


    Evi Schöfer had sent me to Annunziata and Wolfgang von Lutterotti-Diebler (photo). They had two children around the age of ten and lived in Perchtoldsdorf, bordering Vienna, towards the Wienerwald. A good choice. Annunziata comes from South Tyrol; this orientation to Italy seemed to me promising. Her mother and friend Evis since their time in Merano, Theres von Lutterotti, from Caldaro and Cles, I also met. At her suggestion, we went together to Bratislava, because my story of Casanova's numerous stays in Vienna and his trip there encouraged her to do so.

    At this point, I would like to inform the non-Casanovists that closer study of Casanova, if you are not a fool, can open the door to anyone everywhere. It seems to me that Casanova has become a sympathetique figure of the first order.
 
    Two years later, on my way to Venice, I spent the night in their house in Cles, and I'll come back to that later. I stayed with Dieblers for a few days. It was Easter and I went to church. I took the tram daily to Vienna. I had a nice room and in the basement was a barrel of tasty South Tyrolean red wine. There was a sudden commotion in the house. Mr. Diebler wanted to go to Gaeta with some friends, there they had rented a sailboat, the person for the return of the car had failed, the date was not to change, you have to leave tonight ...


    The car was a Chrysler Voyager (photo, on the Via Appia), with cruise control, and we, five or six people, took turns driving us. So I found myself unexpectedly the next lunchtime on the "Main Route of the Grand Tour" (via Radicofani) I described from London to Naples. Mr. Diebler gave me money for the gas and they were already on their boat. They wanted to sail north and the weather forecast was not good. But I passed the Garigliano and drove first to the spot in front of Francolise, where Casanova was attacked and his car overturned.

    Authors of books on travel at the time report, as I have stated, only about bad roads, falling or abyssing carriages and robberies. For they have overlooked the fact that always, therefore and today, nobody says in a letter that nothing happened during the journey, but rather reports when something unpleasant has happened.
    In a hundred or at most two hundred years, the successors of these authors will have explored that the age of the automobile was a single catastrophe. Constantly standing in traffic jams, involved in mass accidents, the cars and trucks were stolen or robbed, the exhaust fumes of the engines pulled to death the city dwellers, caused the extinction of the polar bears, and the ever more expensive gasoline prices led to a misery of motorists. This is clear from records of television news. 
    The "robberies" at Francolise and Cologne did not succeed and were the only ones in Casanova's long travel life, that's for sure, because the storytelling Casanova would not have missed a report on another robbery.


    I found in Terracina a nice little hotel right on the sea. It was an extremely stormy and rainy night, and I learned later that the sailors were in serious trouble, right here, in front of the headland. The next day I drove to Priverno, which of course Casanova still referred to as Piperno, because the place changed his name much later. I enjoyed the further journey on the Via Appia to Rome. In Rome, I was only once, 1970, on my journey by rail to Taormina.

   This year, a dermatologist diagnosed me with psoriasis and advised me to stay longer at the Dead Sea or in Sicily. I chosed Italy and went to Evi Schöfer. She immediately called the Hotel Villa Schuler in Taormina, soon gave me the phone and I heard from Mr. Schuler, I could come during the school holidays of his two sons and stay as long as I wish, if I would give them one hour of German lessons daily; I would get a room with breakfast in the hotel. Soon after my arrival, I went to a nearby antique shop on Corso Umberto to address the owner, Mrs. Daneu, greetings from Evi. Next to her was daughter Adriana. Together we went to the beach or played chess on the rooftop of their villa high above the city. The view from there I held by means of a ink drawing (photo).


    Also in Catania I should make greetings. In her palazzo, the elderly Marquesa mourned her grief with her relationes; recently she even found a poisonous snake in her bed. From Catania I flew after six beautiful weeks and pretty healed from my illness back to Rome in an old, rickety Caravelle, who also transported peasants with chickens and other agricultural products.

    Since then I've learned a lot about traveling and also how much the Italians are used to the tourists for a thousand years and how to deal with them. Today, therefore, I see in a new light, what happened to me when I left the Stazione Termini. As soon as I stood with my suitcase in the square in front of it when a gentleman addressed me. Do I search for a room? He has one for me, very close by, in his apartment, it only costs so and so many lire, do I want to see it? I agreed. He insisted on carrying my suitcase. Everything he had told me proved to be correct, a friendly family welcomed me, the room was small but very neat, and I saved money. I got a house key and went to town.

    I had an equally good experience in 1983 in the port of Brindisi. I was on my way to Thessaloniki to visit a good old friend, Myrto Kyriazi. She can be seen at the top of the photo with Evi Schöfer. Evi came from a Dresden family, they had a house in the "White Deer", as well as the Kyriazis, Greek tobacco dynasty. One of them married a friend of Evis, Myrtos mother. Today, this trip is particularly valuable to me, because that's how I came, after all, almost to Constantinople. Well, I was standing in the port of Brindisi and looked around where there were tickets for the ferry when a gentleman spoke to me. He asked me if he could get me the ticket to Igoumenitsa, this activity as a mediator was his profession. I gave him the required money. He asked about my hotel to bring me the ticket in two hours. In fact, I just came out of it because I wanted to stay here this night. Back in my room, I wondered if the good man would really come. I had no idea who he was. Why did I not just get the ticket in the normal way? Today I think of Casanova when the same thing happened to him in Lerici, but there was the "ticket vendor" a cheat. But now everything was right, the agent brought me punctually the tickets for me and my car.

    In Rome I parked at the Tiber, got a sandwich and ate it in the car while I looked over to St. Peter's Basilica. Then I went into a phone booth and called the Casanovist Furio Luccichenti. Where I was and where we were supposed to meet, he asked. I suggested Piazza del Popolo, because I wanted to continue straightaway; he called me a pub there.

    After this inspiring encounter, I took the Via Cassia in the direction of Florence. I felt a cold. In Viterbo, I bought aspirin in a pharmacy. At Lake Bolsena I was looking for a nice place to stay in the car, but I always felt feverish and drove to Bolsena in the next best hotel. There they took care of me with hot tea and hot broth, I took a bath, sweating in bed and slept well, because I also got good red wine. The next morning I was fit again and drove straight to Radicofani.


    The post building in Radicofani fascinates me for many reasons. The freestanding altitude, the two superimposed loggias, the strict architecture, the age, the frequent mentions in travelogues, just from Casanova, who has descended there six times and experienced a lot, just think of the adventure with Betty. I took pictures and then drove up to the town to inquire if the house could be visited. I learned that someone has a key but is not there. And further, the house is privately owned and nothing is known about future use. Two years later, I was back with the Dutch film crew, and now I see pictures of 2011 on the Internet, the building is still in perfect condition. At the homepage of the town (the photo also is from there) one can read:
    "(...) Venne usata come Stazione di Posta e cambio cavalli fino la fine del 1800, quando divenne dimora privata della famiglia Bologna. Nominata per secoli come "Osteria Grossa" ha ospitato moltissimi personaggi importanti tra i quali: i Papi Pio VI e Pio VII, i Granduchi Ferdinando I, Cosimo II, Leopoldo II, il scrittore Thomas Gray, l'imperatore Giuseppe II d'Austria, William Beckford, il gran maresciallo svedese Axel von Heels, Giacomo Casanova, il marquese de Sade, Stendhal, Francois René de Chateaubriand, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens ed altri."

    I had time for a tour in Siena, but then I drove through to Vienna, because Mrs. Diebler needed the car. On the way back to Lindau I took the post road to Munich via Melk and Linz, as Casanova 1767 in his English coupé from Warsaw. There was also a post station on this route in Braunau am Inn, birthplace of Adolf Hitler, and the next one was in Marktl, birthplace of the german Pope Benedict XVI, but you really do not need to know that.


    In 1993, on the 15th of May, I drove off to England to see the "Lister Chaise". I did not need to ask Evi Schoefer for contacts because I wanted to sleep a lot in the car on the way, also use bed and breakfast, and had contacts myself: the Casanovists Robert Goodwin in Taynton near Oxford, Gillian Rees in Eastbourne and on the return Marco Leeflang in Utrecht. At first I followed Goethe's footsteps: On the road to Paris, I visited the battlefield of Valmy, where the Prussians were devastated by the revolutionary army in 1792. By the way, I also came to Waterloo on my post road trips, also a place I wanted to see for a long time. I then arrived in Calais via Paris, Amiens and Abbéville to ferry to Dover, like Casanova.
 
    On the former post, now national roads of France you feel particularly well relegated to the old days: the vast area, the old villages and cities. It also means that the French in the bistro are still served with their rouge in a tiny glass, so that I had to reorder all the time to finally get to my first quarter. Already Montaigne observed the great drinking pleasure of the Germans. But that is a misunderstanding: At the end of the day, everybody drank the same amount. 

    Given that Casanova's stay in England in 1763-64 was the culmination of his life as an adventurer, I now briefly report on my previous three encounters with this country and its people.
    Casanova was often expelled from a city, a country. It happened to me, too, in 1968 at the airport in London. When asked about the purpose of my entry, I answered truthfully that I came as a tourist and wanted to go to Blackpool to visit a friend and gave the officer a letter from him. That I wanted to work a bit, I concealed. The official called the friend. Then I was immediately put on the next plane back to Frankfurt. It was the middle of the night, and I was surprised to get a pork chop with potatoes and beans on the short flight. 

    In 1961 I had to work at the construction site for two weeks at the beginning of the summer vacation. A lady from London had spent her holidays with us, then my mother with her, and I was allowed to come, for which I should earn the money myself. My landlords in the south of London knew I was jazz trumpeter at the time, so they were not surprised that I went to Soho almost every night in jazz and other night clubs. "Did you meet a girl?" I was asked once. I answered a little uncertainly. "Aha, and what is her name?" I briefly considered a name - my prestige was at stake - and answered "Judith". Sonic laughter. "That's the name of all of them!" I felt they didn't believe me, even though I did not know the reason for this spontaneous mirth. Perhaps once I get explained.
 
    The first time in England I was in 1957, together with my youth group of our Heidelberg parish, at the invitation of Colin O'H, English stockbroker. He resembled the actor Alec Guinness, whom I already knew from some movies like "Ladykillers".
    At Pentecost 1957 my group wanted to hitchhike in a camp near Offenburg in the Black Forest. We usually hitchhiked with a comrade, and there both we stood now at the entrance to the highway to Karlsruhe. There stopped a silver sports car convertible. Where we wanted to go, asked the driver and then said he could take only one, pointing to me. That was completely correct, because his car was a Jaguar XK 140, two-seater, with folding top, even with two-part windscreen (like Casanova's English carriages). I squeezed myself into the seat after I had communicated with my comrade.
    Mister O'H gave gas and said he was on vacation and wanted to go to Baden-Baden in the casino, but he would like to continue to my camp. Once there, he suggested to pick me up the next day for a small excursion. I asked my boss, who did not mind, because Colin, as we soon called him, made a very likeable impression. 
    He visited us twice more and then invited us all to spend the summer holidays on a farm in the Lake District, he would take all the costs, including the trip. After all, our parents allowed it, after some deliberation and inquiries. We got to know London, Edinburgh and a lot more.

    Now back to my fourth entry into English soil in 1993 as Casanovist. At first, I slept some hours in the morning in Lydden, third post stage, in my car, because my "packet-boat" had been traveling at night and one had to leave the cars. Then I drove directly to the Victoria & Albert Museum, found next to a parking lot (photo, taken through the open car roof) and went into it. I asked if there were any pictures of eighteenth-century carriages of any kind, and after a short while I was presented with a cardboard box containing twenty or thirty leaves, some of them very interesting to me, which I also readily chose was allowed to take pictures. So a complete success. Afterwards, I found automobiles in the adjacent National Science Museum, still designed like the Post Chariots including the two-part windscreen.


    I then drove to Nottingham on the highway to the Wollaton Park Industrial Museum, considered the oldest surviving Landauer and found other notable cars. 
    
    Finally, I arrived in Halifax and drove to the folklore museum Shibden Hall, a former Lister estate and now owned by the National Trust. The curator, Rosalind Westwood, was delighted with my interest in the Lister Chaise, which was more of an existence than Cinderella's, because even here hardly anyone knew their paramount importance for the development of the touring car. It was also so exposed that I could not take a good shot, but just a lot of details, but she gave me this photo:


This type of car was called Post Chaise because "post" means changing horses, and "chaise" in this case means a two-seat car without a coachman's seat; with such and possibly further equipment he would have been referred to as a Posting / Traveling Chariot, or Post Chariot for short, and these English carriages had Casanova. When he bought them twice each from an Englishman, they may have spoken Latin and it was probably then simply a "currus britannicus" the speech.

    The next day I drove via Coventry to Taynton to Mr. & Mrs. Robert Goodwin. I was delighted to find that in the countryside, as in Goodwins, one still lives as I have seen in the Miss Marple films with Margaret Rutherford. You enter the house through a split door in the middle, so that you can open only the upper part if necessary. Also, you are then practically immediately in the kitchen. All my living ideal. My bed & breakfast accommodation was also wonderfully old - fashioned. In the two-storey house, on the Bel Etage, I had a large room, with heavy, dark curtains, a porcelain washbasin and porcelain jug, electrical wiring on the walls, and a huge, iron bed with a Persian rug spread over it.
    
    I then continued via Stonehenge and Southhampton to Eastbourne to Gillian Rees, who offered me her guest room. The next day we made a nice trip in my car to the Museum of Maidstone, where a Post Chariot was supposed to be. But it was a huge, pretentious city car and not what I was looking for. For that, I learned a lot from Gillian about Casanova's stay in London. Two years later, she visited me in my parents' house to correct the English version of the "Casanova Tour."

    In Holland, I was only once, 1966, and only passing by, but with a great touring car. The student employment service offered me a job: transfer the car together with the older American couple to Rotterdam. That was when the new Mercedes 220 came out, with the straight, elongated line and tall windows, and the pair had come specially from the United States to receive it. They wanted to take a look at Holland and I should first drive them to Amsterdam, and then further to Hoorn. There we went to a hotel and the lovely people told me without being asked that I could keep the car and drive around tonight. I was speechless, but grabbed me quickly and thanked me warmly. They did not know who I was at all! I could have gone by car, sold it ... But I drove in the city only a couple of pubs. In Rotterdam, they royally paid me.

    Back on the continent, I was interested in Dunkirk, where Casanova undercover had successfully and even many more royally paid inspected the French fleet for their ability to invade England. Then I drove directly to Utrecht to meet Marco and Janna Leeflang in their house. I received a warm welcome, got a nice room and could now get to know Holland much better than 27 years ago.


    Everybody will eventually hear the name "Casanova" and always in connection with the seduction of beautiful women. Some want to know more about him and get his also legendary "memoirs". That 's what I did in 1973, it was a Goldmann paperback. The reading also inspired me to finally see Venice. In the summer of 1975 I drove with the VW Beetle of my parents to Venice. I looked around for a hotel and found the "Bel Sito", not far from St. Mark's Square. When I returned to Venice twenty years later, I went to the same hotel and met the previously mentioned Barbara Evers, who also preferred to descend in "Bel Sito". There were even more Casanovists lodging there.

    After half a year, on March 2, 1996, we came together again. Once again Mr. Bagnasco hosted the meetings in his palazzo opposite the church of Santa Maria della Salute, and of course I descended again in the nearby "Bel Sito". Opposite the hotel is the church Santa Maria del Giglio. Once I passed her left side, then over a small bridge that leads to the Campiello Feltrina. Coming down the few steps in the bridge, I noticed something interesting on the left in the window of an antique shop. I went closer and saw a rather large model of a four-wheeled Berlin chaise, with two horses in front of it (photo).



    I immediately thought of Casanova's "calèche" in Pasiano. Several features led to a dating "around 1730" and I recognized the high value of such a model. I knew that Hermès had paid DM 50,000 for a comparable coach, if only because of the old leather. Of course, the antique dealer here did not know that (otherwise the chaise would not have been in the shop window), but what will he ask for? I could not find out, the door was locked and the name Giuseppe Patitucci was written on a piece of paper and the phone number for appointments. I tried to reach him, but in vain. Later I learned that he was mostly in New York. I did not care anymore, especially since I did not have any money for a purchase at all, and because even my photos of this car were a big win. 

    Two months later someone called me from Holland. One plans a television movie about Casanovists; Marco Leeflang recommended me as a travel specialist for participation; if I could be in Teplice with my Deux Chevaux on May 12 to discuss everything else. 
    Faster than I expected, it went on the film tour. On the 1st of June we met us in Grenoble in a hotel tower, we, that was the manager, his assistant, the director, the cameraman, the soundman and me. I was supposed to drive with my Charlotte from one Casanovist to another, so spinning a thread through the film, and sometimes lead the interviews. The mood was good, but mine sank when the boss told me I would share the room with him. Then there was only a double bed. That went too far. I hate that, so I can not sleep. But in my Charlotte. I politely said goodbye and took the elevator down to the underground car park. There, the contents of a bottle of red wine washed my anger down and made for a good night's sleep.

    But then (everyone got his own hotel room), the three-week trip with the movie people and the Casanovists, who joined us again and again for a time, was a nice adventure. In Grenoble we visited Marie-Francoise Luna. Then there were the locations: Geneva, Aix-en-Provence, Chambéry, Mont-Cenis Pass, Novalesa, Radicofani, Rome, Padua, Venice (photo), Vienna, Prague, Dux, Münchengrätz, and at the end we visited Hartmut Scheible in his house in Mörfelden near Frankfurt. By the way, he is the one who made me the best compliment ever. In Venice, in 1996, he said, meaning my book: "What you are doing is Schwarzbrot (brown bred)". Choice of words of a great writer.


    Venice. When we got there (we stayed at the "Bel Sito") I remembered the chaise, I ran to the window - it was still there. Now I wanted to know. Fortunately, Barbara Evers was there too, and I told her the facts. Lo and behold, she knew Mr. Patitucci, got him to the phone after several attempts in New York and asked what he wanted for the model in the shop window. He replied: "twelve million", that is twelve thousand Deutschmark. That was not good news, of course. Had I been present at the conversation, I would have offered three million lire, and we would probably have agreed on six. But nothing could be done that way.

    On June 20, I was back at my house. Barbara kept in touch with Patitucci and finally told me I could meet him at his shop on the 4th of July. In the meantime I had borrowed half of the purchase price, that is six thousand marks, in cash from a good old rider friend; the other half I wanted to pay with an uncovered check, which could be redeemed after six weeks. During this time I wanted to sell the model.

    I imagined the probable course of the purchase and came to the conclusion that it would be good to have someone with me who spoke Italian, and perhaps I could spend the night. Nothing was closer than to pay a visit once again to my old friend Evi Schöfer.
    Then I drove off with my Charlotte, via Füssen and Bolzano to San Michele all' Adige, last post station before Trento. There I turned right and drove north up the mountains to Cles, where Judith von Lutterotti (with her mother Theres I did, as mentioned, the trip from Vienna to Bratislava) with her little son Fabian and a sister in one delightful villa lived. Judith was very enthusiastic about my adventurous purchase of an antiquity and immediately offered to drive me to Venice tomorrow and would also like to help me in the negotiations in Italian.

    Her son was also with us and at noon we stood as agreed in front of the shop window at the Campiello Feltrina. We waited for two hours; Judith telephoned now and then, and waited with an admirable serenity, what would probably happen yet. Then he was there, Giuseppe Patitucci, apologizing for his delay. In the store he gave me after a shy request to know, the price was nothing to do, he had to achieve, otherwise he would have earned nothing. Of course I was prepared for that and said, well, I pay in cash, and so and so later. Amazingly, Mr. Patitucci trusted me and agreed. He dismantled the "Modellino", as he called it - it was 75 cm long! - in three parts, which he wrapped carefully with tissue paper and into a box, which he had to extend by another (photo). He asked us if we wanted to go to his apartment, where we could do well the business.


    On the way, Mr Patitucci invited us for a light lunch in his favorite restaurant on the Grand Canal. After that, we four crossed the canal in a gondola with some other people; as usual, all the passengers were upright in it, but I squeezed my package to sit in the swaying vehicle.
    Patitucci lived in two floors full of cupboards, shelves, tables, furniture, etc. He showed us old Leicas, his specialty. Then he brought out a large account book and showed me the entry of the model: bought about a year ago, from the estate of a count from the area, and he pointed to the price: six million lire. I also only doubled what I had paid and got it as well. In good conscience and general satisfaction, we parted.

    I stayed with the Lutterottis again. Before I set off, I prepared my precious cargo for a possible customs check on the Brenner Pass. It is forbidden in Italy to bring valuable antiques out of the country. I took the modellino out of the many pieces of paper and cardboard, put the horses and the front frame in a plastic bag, casually spread a towel over the chaise, and put everything visibly in my clothes; nothing could happen, because if I had been asked, I would have dismissed it as a child's toy. I was waved at the border.

    I come now to the end of the adventure with the modellino. I offered it to Hermès, but got no answer. I got the missing sum from my bank, so Patitucci was paid completely. Nevertheless, time was running out, so now it was time for two museums with which I was in contact, and both wanted to have it. I chosed the Wuerttemberg State Museum. I knew the responsible head for coaches department, Mr. Thomas Brune, through his publications and phone calls. My friend, who had lent me the money, Bernd Eggersgluess, drove me and the modellino, for which I had meanwhile had a nice wooden box built, in the Old Castle in Stuttgart. The tension was great, because I got a clear purchase intention, but you have to see and examine the coach already. The Modellino was now there, Thomas Brune and the director of the Landesmuseum, Mr. Himmelrein (on the photo left), were amazed.


Then came the chief restorer. He, too, was very fond of this rarity. A few days later money was back in my account. Bernd confessed to me on the way home that he did not really believe that this was going well. I was always sure, otherwise I would not have done that at all. 

    In the castle of Heidenheim an der Brenz, which houses the folklore collection of carriages of the Württembergisches Landesmuseum, my modellino was presented to the public on May 10, 1998, surrounded by a nice documentary about travel, which was based almost exclusively on material from my manual and where Casanova was central. 

    It continued with my book as follows. The next year, 1999, I joined the World Wide Web, got the domain www.giacomo-casanova.de and published my manual "The Casanova Tour" in English and German in html format a year later. 
    According to my domain statistics, the pages in English are the most visited, especially "Mr. Nugent's Rates of Exchange," about 500 times in January 2019 alone. Then follows Marco Leeflang's contribution "Casanova between Venice and Dux (1782-1785)", 200 times; the bibliography of the CT in English and German, 80 times; then the beginning of "The CT", 70 times; then my new article "Chance in Philiosophy and Religion", 60 times; fewer views then: Casanova Magazine, "Die CT", etc.

    When I fabricated the English edition, I hardly knew anything about the Internet. The impetus for this was not only the hope of a wider spread, but also to let the British know in their language that they invented not only the railroad but also the first modern touring car. One hundred and fifty years later, it became the "motorcar". We Germans mistakenly call it "automobile", because a motor vehicle drives without petrol and driver just as unlikely as a horse car without oats and coachman. 
    In the present case, not only the two horses needed good feed, but also the driver needed for good steering coffee, Camembert, baguette and vin rouge (photo: supper).
 

 

Dieser Artikel, leicht gekürzt, mit 4 Fotos, erschien im October 2019 in CASANOVIANA 2.