Once a week she and the family went shopping – one-and-a-half- hour’s walk down to the car and a two-hour slog back up again, carrying food for six. Her husband was somewhere in the mountains to the east, tracking a small group of East European brown bears recently let into the Pyrenees, sleeping when they slept, following them when they decided it was time to move on.Essential PhraseYou’ll be spared a lot of wasted time with an understanding of that wonderfully vague, catch-all phrase, en principe. “The tourist office is open until five, en principe” means it usually closes at 4.30; “yes, the bus stops in Saint-Jean, en principe” means it’ll rattle straight through; and if anyone assures you “there won’t be any problem buying tickets on the door, en principe,” forget it.Jan Dodd did research for ‘The Rough Guide to France’. Whatever the truth, there’s a definite chill in the air that isn’t entirely due to the altitude.Best EncounterHigh up in the summer meadows of the Pyrenees above St-Gerons I met Joelle watching over some of the 2,000 sheep she had in her care.
Some say he found the legendary lost treasure of Solomon abandoned here by the Visigoths, or the Cathar gold, others that he was a simple grave-robber. More imaginative theories claim he unearthed a dark secret about the life of Jesus and was being paid-off by the Vatican. To this day no one knows where the money came from, but it seems the Abbe cracked the many, oddly sinister coded messages scattered round the church. It wasn’t just that Biarritz tourist office was knee-deep in holiday-makers with too many questions, nor that every bed was taken in St-Jean-de-Luz No, the real killer was the weather. It was the wettest summer on record since the Flood, and the usually bustling promenades were empty and depressing.
I couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to take a slow coffee, sitting in the bay window of the Hotel du Palais, one of Europe’s grand old hotels, watching the storms roll in off the Atlantic.Most MysteriousI kept hearing strange tales about the tiny, mountain-top village of Rennes-le-Chateau, so decided to see for myself. In the late 1800s Abbe Sauniere, a man of no great means, spent a fortune restoring his little church, with enough left over for a comfortable presbytery complete with orangery, fountains and a gothic tower; not surprisingly, suspicions were aroused. It really doesn’t matter too much where it is or what the weather, though ideally, of course, the sun will be shining and the view superb, but the ingredients are critical, one plump, crusty baguette, preferably still warm from the oven; a generous selection of local charcuterie and cheeses; fruits in season – tasting of sun and long, lazy days, with just enough room left to succumb to a patisserie.Biggest MistakeI didn’t have much choice in the matter, but trying to research the Basque coast in August was not a good idea. “Jazz In Marciac” has to be one of the most laid-back, low-key of France’s many jazz festivals. Now 20 years old, JIM is well-enough established to attract the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock and Robert Cray, as well as dozens of lesser names who play all afternoon for nothing in the square.Best MealDespite all the thousands of excellent restaurants in France, the best meal on every trip is always the first picnic-lunch across the Channel.
Instead of the usual crowd of bored teenagers hanging round a cafe, the arcaded square was full of jaunty parasols and the sunny sound of jazz. Favourite Hotel
One long-time favourite is the little Auberge des Seigneurs in the old part of Vence. The place is oozing character and serves good, hearty meals, but its greateset appeal is the bedrooms named after the painters who once stayed here. It’s not unusual, of course, in southern French hotels to see a Dufy landscape hanging on your bedroom wall, but what could be more romantic than throwing open the morning shutters to find an identical scene, one that Dufy, sitting at the same window, painted seventy years earlier.
Best DiscoveryOne hot afternoon in August I stumbled across a work-a-day market town on the edge of the rolling hills of Gascony. All rooms are suitable for private study.FACT FILECotactsDistinctly Different, tel/fax 01225 866648Wolsey Lodges 01449 741297Knights in Britain 01747 871221/fax 01747 871281Wales, Great Little Places 01686 668030/fax 01686 668029National Trust Bed and Breakfast leaflet, PO Box 39, Bromley, Kent BR1 3XL (send SAE, A5 envelope with first class stamp)Bed and Breakfast for Garden Lovers, Handywater Farm, Sibford Gower, Banbury ,Oxon OX15 5AE ( send SAE 22cm x 11cm envelope with four first- class stamps-loose).Vegetarian Visitor pounds 2 50 or call 01689 870437.Uptown Reservations, 0171 351 3445/fax 0171 351 9383London Bed and Breakfast Agency, 0171 586 2768/fax 0171 586 6567Doctor in the House, 0181 870 5949/fax 0181 877 3464Further readingRAC Bed and Breakfast 1997, to keep in car or brief case, the RAC B & B guide to Great Britain and Ireland lists over 2,000 properties graded in three categories pounds 5 99 from bookshops.. B & B with continental breakfast is pounds 28 single, pounds 42 double with reductions for longer stays. The London B & B Agency also has interesting hosts including a musician in Acker Bilk’s band and a parrot- owning artist.
