Holidays to France

FRENCH HOTELS are beginning to enjoy a reputation as the point of your journey, rather than somewhere to be endured along the way. This is not a universal trend, but individual hoteliers have been adding personal attention, style and comfort to their existing culinary reputations. If you have a complaint or a compliment, this new breed of hands-on owner will be there to listen to you – with interest. Such hotels are typically family-run and housed in sympatheticallyrestored and furnished historic buildings – part of the landscape rather than modern intrusions. Often they are proud to proclaim their unique regional identity.

Northern France

The plains of Picardy, with their traditional inns and converted châteaux, are bordered to the north by the Ardennes forests and to the east by the mountains and hills of Vosges. Paris and its surroundings dominate the centre of the region, its hotels ranging from chic townhouses to the grand buildings of the large hotels. The Channel coast has its share of heavy industry and oil refineries, concentrated round Le Havre and Rouen, but close by lie the beautiful port of Honfleur, Bayeux with its memories of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England (and the more recent D-Day landings), and the lush farmland of the Pays d’Auge and La Suisse Normande, with châteaux, mills and half-timbered inns. To the west of the Channel port of Cherbourg lies the monastery island of Le Mont-St-Michel; here begins the more rugged landscape of Celtic Brittany, with its manors and seaside hotels.

Central France

We define this region as beginning to the south of the Ile de France, and stretching from Nantes at the mouth of the Loire in the west, to the Jura mountains in the east. The great châteaux of the Loire Valley, many of which were remodelled during the Renaissance, are almost always breathtaking, and not all just for looking at: two exquisite examples of places to stay are the Château de Noirieux at Briollay, (page 239) and the Hostellerie du Château de Bellecroix at Chagny (page 239). Burgundy stands out for the rustic buildings of the fragmented vineyards of the Côte d’Or; the religious showpieces at Vézelay, Fontenay and Cluny, and the splendid palaces of Dijon. Further east is Franche-Comté, with its alpine highlands, crystal rivers, and rolling farmland in the Saône valley.

 Southern France

 Poitou, to the north of the city of Bordeaux, and Aquitaine, stretching down to the western end of the Pyrenees at Biarritz, make up the final section of France’s Atlantic coastline. Mile upon mile of sandy beaches are backed by dunes and pine forests. The Romans left their imperial mark here – the great arch of Germanicus and the amphitheatre at Saintes are both worth a detour. Medieval pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostela left a legacy of Romanesque churches such as those at Poitiers and Parthenay. The vineyards of Bordeaux have kept the city prosperous for centuries. A number of the château hotels in this region, (such as the one at Pauillac, page 258), run their own wine appreciation courses. To the east lie the green, rolling hills, farms and manors of the Dordogne Valley and the caves and culinary delights of Périgord. The cave paintings at Lascaux are probably the most important in France – but if you prefer foie gras, walnuts and truffles, try Sarlat’s fabulous Saturday market. In the far southwest, the French Pyrenees take you into Basque country, offering spectacular scenery – and mountain activities as tiring or thrilling as anybody could want. Returning to your Basque inn, or perhaps to the Hôtel de la Reine Sancie at Sauveterre-de-Béarn (page 263), with its spectacular position on medieval arches above the Gave d’Oloron river, will make you glad you survived the day intact. Languedoc-Roussillon is squeezed in between the Mediterranean shore and the Massif Central range. Roussillon was Spanish until 1659, and the Fort de Salses still stands at the old border. Carcassonne is an amazingly well-restored medieval town and Nîmes still has much of the Roman about it. The Massif Central is an enigmatic area, wild and hard on the Grands Causses, gentle in the Limousin and spectacular where the Lot, Aveyron and Tarn leave the Aubrac mountains through rugged gorges. To the east lies the Rhône Valley and beyond are the French Alps with some traditional chalet hotels. Provence is nowadays almost too familiar to need much description. The saltmarshes of the Camargue and the resorts of the Côte d’Azur have, as a back-drop, a highly-coloured and scented hinterland, where the Romans who built the theatre (still in use) at Vaison-la-Romaine may well have found Bronze Age remains. Hotels have found their way into mas – the Provençal farmhouses – and into villas originally built for private pleasure.

FOOD AND DRINK

FRENCH COOKING is probably the subtlest, most varied and most imaginative in the world. It is not necessarily elaborate, but the care taken to choose, season and flavour the principal ingredients can lift dishes into the realms of the extraordinary. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some gastronomes felt that French food had lost its edge, at any rate compared with the new cuisines of Britain, Australia and the US Pacific Rim. Nowadays, our impression is that French food is reinventing itself.

The range of styles is stupendous – in the north the coastal waters yield huge platters of fruits de mer, and travelling eastwards you find the ham, sausages, stout stews and tangy cheeses of Alsace. In the west the pork, cream and calvados of Normandy are neighbours to the Breton crêpes, seafood and lamb raised on the coastal salt marshes.

Moving southwest, the foie gras, truffles, confits and walnut oil of Périgord, the wine-based cookery of Bordeaux, and the shellfish and lobsters of Arcachon and Marennes eventually give way to the robust and often highly-spiced dishes of the Basque southwest. Lyon can claim to be the gastronomic centre of France: in this fortunate city, Bresse chicken, Charolais beef, wild fowl from the Dombes, smoked sausage and freshwater fish from Franche-Comté and the Jura join forces with a host of local cheeses such as Vacherin, Cantal and Fourme d’Ambert.

The south of France has the brightest palette of colours: in the markets, aubergines, courgettes, asparagus, huge tomatoes, peppers, peaches and cherries contrast with black olives, walnuts, braids of garlic and wild mushrooms. The basis of many a dish is lamb from the Camargue, or red mullet and red snapper – combined with conger eel and monkfish to make bouillabaisse, the king of fish soups. Entire books have been devoted to the wine of single French vineyards. All that can be said here is that prices range from the stratospheric to rock-bottom; and that it is a matter of pride for most restaurateurs to offer excellent value house wine (vin du patron) from the lower end of the scale. Do try them, if only to give your purse a rest. France has been listing and classifying wine production areas for nearly 200 years. There are three principal classifications: appellation contrôlée (AC), which guarantees origin and a certain standard, vin délimité de qualité supérieure (VDQS), which distinguish good wines of local interest; and vin de pays, which is the humblest grade of all.

Virtually all the best wineproducing areas are dominated by their rivers. The Marne and the topmost reaches of the Seine flow through Champagne; the Loire through the vineyards producing the dry whites of Muscadet in the west, and of Pouilly and Sancerre in the east, and the sweeter wines of Touraine and Anjou at the centre. The Charente cuts Cognac in half; the Dordogne graces Bergerac and then, like the Garonne, empties into the Gironde estuary near Bordeaux, where the great wines of the Médoc, St Émilion, Pomerol and Graves are produced. From east of the Burgundian capital of Beaune, the Saône flows almost due south through the Mâconnais to join the Rhône, which itself continues south through the rich red wine-producing areas between the cities of Lyon and Avignon.

BEDROOMS AND BATHROOMS

UNLESS OTHERWISE specified, a double room has a double bed (grand lit). If you want twin beds (deux lits) be sure to ask for them – there may be an extra charge. Specify clearly if you want your own bathroom (avec salle de bain en suite).

Bathrooms may not have a bath (une baignoire). If a shower (une douche) will not do, be sure to say so when booking. WEEKEND WEDDING parties can go on very noisily till dawn. It is worth asking if your booking will coincide with un mariage – and well worth revising your plans if it does. The national summer holidays start around 14 July and end on 31 August; if possible, avoid travelling around these dates, for obvious reasons.

Language

Most hotels have an English-speaker, or can find one at a pinch, but no matter how bad your French is, you will collect some goodwill by attempting to use it. If you are visiting Alsace-Lorraine, and you don’t know the word in French, try German.

Currency

Until recently, the French franc. From 1 January 2002, France switches over to the European euro (written ‘EUR’), made up of 100 cents.

Shops

Food shops tend to open at about 7am, close around noon for lunch, and reopen in the late afternoon until 7pm. Food shops often open on Sunday mornings but stay closed on Monday mornings. Other shops usually open 9am–6pm Mon–Sat, and, except for the supermarkets and hypermarkets, take a lunch break.

Tipping

A service charge is usually added in cafés and restaurants, but most French people leave a small tip at bars and 5 per cent at restaurants.

Telephoning

Phoning abroad from hotels can be very expensive. Some public telephones take coins, others take télécartes (50 or 120 unit phonecards from post offices, tabacs and some cafés). Post offices have cabines – booths where you can call first and pay afterwards.

All French telephone numbers have ten digits: a two-figure area prefix, followed by an eight-digit number. If phoning from within France, always include the full area prefix. To phone France from the UK, dial 00 33, then the phone number, omitting the initial zero from the area prefix; from the US, 011 33.

Public holidays

1 January; Easter Sunday and Monday; Ascension Day (sixth Thursday after Easter); Whit Monday (second Monday after Ascension Day); 1 May; 8 May; 14 July; 1 November; 11 November; 25 December.

USEFUL WORDS

Breakfast Petit déjeuner

Lunch Déjeuner

Dinner Dîner

Free room? Chambre libre?

How much? Combien?

A single Une chambre pour une personne

A double Une chambre pour deux personnes