Baden is a little watering-place sixteen miles from the capital, to which the Viennese go for a “cure,” and to which the Carlsbad and Marienbad doctors sometimes send their patients to begin an after cure. It is a pretty little place with shady parks and an 328 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe unpretentious restaurant at the Kurhaus and another in the Weilburggasse, and the walk up the valley of the Schwechat has cafe-restaurants at several of the points of interest. Carlsbad Probably twenty Englishmen go to Carlsbad for their liver’s sake for every ten who go to Vienna to be amused, and the great Bohemian town in the valley where the hot spring gushes up is one of the resorts to which gourmets, who have eaten not wisely but too well, are most frequently sent. It is a town of good but very simple fare, for the doctors rule it absolutely, and nothing which can hurt a patient’s digestion is allowed to appear on the bill of fare of any of the restaurants or hotels. The life of the place, which chiefly is bound up in the consideration of where to eat the three simple meals allowed, is curious. In the morning, after the disagreeable necessity of drinking three or more glass- fuls of the hot water, every man and every lady spends a half hour deciding where to breakfas't, and what kind of roll and what kind of ham they shall eat. The bakers’ shops are crowded by people picking out the special rusk or special roll they prefer, and these are carried off in little pink bags. Two slices of ham are next bought from one of the shops where men in white clothes slice all day long at the lean Prague ham or the fatter Westphalian. No man is really a judge of ham until he has argued for a quarter of an hour every morning outside the shop in the Carlsbad High Street, as to what breed of pig gives the most appetising slice. Bag in hand, ham in pocket, the man undergoing a cure walks to the Elephant in the Alte Wiese, or to one of the little restaurants which stud the valley and the hillsides, delightful little e Austria 329 buildings with great glass shelters for rainy days, and lawns and flower beds and creepers, where neat waitresses in black, with their Christian names in white metal worn as a brooch, or great numbers pinned to their shoulders, receive you with laughing welcome, set a red-clothed table for you, and bring you the tea or hot milk and boiled eggs which com- plete your repast. Be careful of which waitress you smile at on your first day, for she claims you as her especial property for the rest of your stay, and to ask another waitress to bring your eggs would be the deepest treason. Many of the proprietors of the little restaurants have now set their faces against rolls and ham being brought into their gardens from outside, saying that they provide the best of rolls and the best of pig’s flesh. It requires a day or two in Carlsbad to discover which the restaurants are which resent the importation of food by guests.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Baden is a little watering-place sixteen miles from the capital, to which the Viennese go for a “cure,” and to which the Carlsbad and Marienbad doctors sometimes send their patients to begin an after cure. It is a pretty little place with shady parks and an 328 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe unpretentious restaurant at the Kurhaus and another in the Weilburggasse, and the walk up the valley of the Schwechat has cafe-restaurants at several of the points of interest. Carlsbad Probably twenty Englishmen go to Carlsbad for their liver’s sake for every ten who go to Vienna to be amused, and the great Bohemian town in the valley where the hot spring gushes up is one of the resorts to which gourmets, who have eaten not wisely but too well, are most frequently sent. It is a town of good but very simple fare, for the doctors rule it absolutely, and nothing which can hurt a patient’s digestion is allowed to appear on the bill of fare of any of the restaurants or hotels. The life of the place, which chiefly is bound up in the consideration of where to eat the three simple meals allowed, is curious. In the morning, after the disagreeable necessity of drinking three or more glassfuls of the hot water, every man and every lady spends a half hour deciding where to breakfas't, and what kind of roll and what kind of ham they shall eat. The bakers’ shops are crowded by people picking out the special rusk or special roll they prefer, and these are carried off in little pink bags. Two slices of ham are next bought from one of the shops where men in white clothes slice all day long at the lean Prague ham or the fatter Westphalian. No man is really a judge of ham until he has argued for a quarter of an hour every morning outside the shop in the Carlsbad High Street, as to what breed of pig gives the most appetising slice. Bag in hand, ham in pocket, the man undergoing a cure walks to the Elephant in the Alte Wiese, or to one of the little restaurants which stud the valley and the hillsides, delightful little zAustria 329 buildings with great glass shelters for rainy days, and lawns and flower beds and creepers, where neat waitresses in black, with their Christian names in white metal worn as a brooch, or great numbers pinned to their shoulders, receive you with laughing welcome, set a red-clothed table for you, and bring you the tea or hot milk and boiled eggs which complete your repast. Be careful of which waitress you smile at on your first day, for she claims you as her especial property for the rest of your stay, and to ask another waitress to bring your eggs would be the deepest treason. Many of the proprietors of the little restaurants have now set their faces against rolls and ham being brought into their gardens from outside, saying that they provide the best of rolls and the best of pig’s flesh. It requires a day or two in Carlsbad to discover which the restaurants are which resent the importation of food by guests.

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