La Karlsbad/ Karlovy Vary cu automobilul şi aeroplanul (în prima jumătate a secolului XX)
To Karlsbad/ Karlovy Vary by car and plane (first half of the 20th Century)

Summary/Abstract: The present paper has as its starting point the research undertaken in previous years regarding the Romanian travelers and visitors who visited the famous spa resort of Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary (18th century - around 1930) and published in year 2022. Researching the subject also involved investigating the means by which Romanian travelers could get from Romania or the Romanian provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina) to Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary, in the western corner of the Empire (after 1918 of Czechoslovakia). Along with the old means of transport that these travelers used (stagecoach, steamboats, train), around 1900 the modern means of transport appear: the automobile and the plane. Even if in the studied period they do not reach the popularity of the train, they are becoming more and more important, in the context of the development of transport and mobility of the travelers. But in this early period they are, at the same time, expressions of ”modern” social gestures. Cars are driven and airplanes are flown by sportsmen, who receive great social prestige and were closely followed by the media. The paper also highlights two examples of ”modern” travels, interesting and well documented by the historical sources of the time: the travel by car of the Romanian politician Constantin Argetoianu in the summer of 1914 and the flight of Queen Maria in the plane piloted by Archduke Anton of Habsburg in year 1932.

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