France on L25
By GLYN DANIEL WHEN the foreign-travel allowance was cut to £50 last November, tourist agencies began to report that their bookings were increasing, and by January, when it was cut to £25, they said that already there was a fifteen per cent. increase on their previous year's bookings for foreign tours. This apparently contrary result is probably due to the fact that many intending tourists are worried by stories of increased costs on the Continent, and want to know beforehand that their hotel-bills will be met and just how much pocket- money will be available to them. "Fifteen days in Montreux and £14 spending money," "Ten days in Dinard and £16 spend- ing money" are the sort of thing that the tourist agencies are now advertising, and these attractive and comforting slogans almost delude one into thinking that the spending money is coming from the agencies themselves or the Export Control Branch of the Bank of England. But the traveller who, like myself, dislikes institutionalised travel is again wondering how much he can achieve in 1952 on his allowance, and, indeed, whether it is worth the effort.
The answers to these questions for France are fairly simple. The return rail-fare to any resort is over and above the currency allowance. The French railways issue special tourist tickets which give twenty per cent. reduction on journeys of at least 1,500 kilometres and thirty per cent. reduction for journeys of over 2,000 kilometres, With these tourist return tickets the London-Pau return fare, for example, travel- ling third class and via Dieppe, is £12 17s. 5d. Rail-travel in France is now about 16s. per hundred miles, third class.
To offset the disadvantage of not having fares paid before- hand in sterling, motorists are given an additional allow- ance of £15 per car. Petrol in France is more expensive than in England; prices vary according to the different selling zones based on the distance from the ports. The average price of ordinary essence in now 5s. 7d. per gallon, and essence is com- parable to our Pool petrol. Supercarburant, which has a higher octane rating, and is really only suitable for high- compression engines and sports cars, is 5s. lid, per gallon. The ordinary motorist with a 12 to 16 h.p. car using essence can easily achieve a round trip of 1,200 to 1,500 miles. Calais to Nice via Paris is about 750 miles.
French living costs have mounted very much since last summer. Edgar Faure, when he was Premier in February, said that French costs had risen by thirty-nine per cent. in the last year, as compared with a rise of twelve per cent. in Britain. Butter in France is 8s. a lb., milk just over is. for just under a quart, eggs 5d. to 7d. each, and sugar is. 6d. a lb. There is plenty of everything, but a 4 lb. leg of lamb may cost as much as 30s. Yet, despite these soaring prices, French hoteliers know that they must keep down their charges if they are to win the English tourist. In 1951 some 660,000 British tourists visited France, taking with them the equivalent of twenty million pounds sterling in francs. The present problem of the French hotel-keeper is to maintain his, high standards of food and wine and accommodation at reasonable cost.
An examination of the 1952 Guide Michelin, just published, as well as correspondence with hotels I have visited in previous post-war years, shows that this can be done. It is not an apparently hopeless task to get a fortnight's holiday in France "on Mr. Butler's dole of £25 "as Janus wrote in the Spectator of April 1 1 th. There are plenty of hotels where a bedroom for two, service et taxe compris, can be had for less than five or six shillings per head per night; and these are not doss-houses but reputable hostelries, many of them included among the 674 hotels to which Michelin gives one star for outstanding cuisine.
I have been comparing meal-prices in the Michelin Guides for the last three years. In 1950 Monsieur Duclaud at the Glycines Hotel at Les Eyzies was charging 8s. for his menu tourist ique for lunch or dinner; in 1951 it was 9s.; and this year it is to be ,10s.; all these prices are inclusive of taxes and tips. In 1950 the excellent fixed-price menu at the Buffet de la Gare at Rodez was 5s. 6d. for lunch or dinner; in 1951 it was 6s., and this year it is still to be 6s. And France is full of hotels prepared, especially out of the high season, to provide full pension at from 20s. to 30s. a day.
Some places have made very special arrangements this year. The Syndicat d'Initiative of Nice, for example, have organised their hotels into groups that will easily permit a stay of from ten to fifteen days; the lowest price-group provides full pension for 1,000 francs per person between April 15th and July 1st, and these prices are net; that is to say, they include' all taxes and service. During the summer the prices will be fifteen to twenty per cent. higher. Similar arrangements have been made at Cannes. In Brittany, also, inclusive prices out of the season are £1 a day in modest hotels, £1 4s. in comfortable family hotels, and £1 8s. in good-class hotels. The Logis de France, modernised country hotels to be found in nearly every part of France, quote terms often equally good or better than these. Motorists touring around France cannot, of course, claim these en pension rates, but 30s. a day should cover the average tourist. Most people will have found that a mid-day picnic lunch in France is more than adequate. Bread, charcuterie, cheese and fruit can be bought for three or four shillings a head, and grocers' shops are full of drinkable local wine at 2s. 6d. to 4s. a bottle. The mid-day picnique prepares the stomach for the delights of the evening meal. With what zest and virtue we repair to the dinner-table. And, even in this year of £25 allowances, we fortunately do not always have to restrict ourselves to the lowest of the prix fixe menus. In January I made a special detour into Burgundy to visit the Hotel de la Gare at Montbard where Monsieur Belin-Terrillon has established a great gastronomic reputation for himself, being elected in 1948 the best hotelier in Burgundy, and in 1949 being awarded the title of the deuxieme table de France. In such circumstances it was essential to eat his menu gastronomique. It consisted of brioche chaude au foie gras, fruit au caprice de Buffon, le veritable saulpiquet Montbardois (fresh ham in a splendid sweet-sharp -sauce), haricots verts, cheese and crepes flambes au maborange. The dinner was a pound; a bottle of 1950 Chablis 10s.; the bedrooms (centrally heated and with hot and cold running water) five to ten shillings a head.
So that it can be done. The joint travel-allowance of two people should enable them to spend a very comfortable ten to fourteen days in France, leaving ten to fifteen pounds for incidentals. Statistics published in The Times on January 31st, 1952, showed that the average amount spent by tourists visiting France in 1951 was £30, so that the limit of £100 was well in excess of the needs of the majority of tourists. The present allowance is thus only £5 below last year's average expendi- ture. What the tourist must do is guard his expenditure care- fully in all ways. Here are some of them. Reduce luggage to a minimum; French porters charge a fixed rate for every item carried. Avoid taxis; travel across Paris on the inter- station bus service. Buy in this country, and pay sterling for them, vouchers for meals on the main-line Continental trains. Never go into a restaurant which does not display its prices outside—even if it looks modest and inexpensive. Always drink the local wine, and stay in country hotels off the main roads. In this way one can still get a fortnight in France on £25; and it will include as much of the countryside as one wants, and an occasional gastronomic blow-out.
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