Consuming Interest
Viva Villa
By LESLIE ADRIAN
In France it is not cheap to rent a villa by the sea in the summer months; on the Cate d'Azur £100 a month for five or six people, with prob- ably at least one sleeping in the living-room, is the average price; in Brittany 00-170 will buy equivalent accommodation, except in August, when rents are almost double those of July and September. On both the Mediterranean coast and in Brittany a small family with three weeks' holi- day would save little by renting a villa rather than by staying in a hotel or pension. (Landlords in these areas usually insist on tenancies starting on the first or fifteenth of the month, a com- plicating factor for English holidaymakers.) How- ever, for a long let of two or three months or for a large party a villa is always an economic propo- sition, and outside the peak holiday period (July to mid-September) flats and villas can be rented amazingly cheaply, even on the Cote d'Azur and the Italian Riviera. For summer holidays the Costa Brava villas are less expensive and more easily available. Most Spanish landlords are more adaptable about dates, also they usually provide linen (in France the provision of linen is excep- tional), which is an important item for people carrying their own luggage or travelling by air. In the mountain resorts of the Pyrenees and Savoy there is also little difficulty in finding pleasant houses and flats, with linen provided,' quite cheaply and at convenient dates even for short holidays in the popular months.
I know of two London agencies which deal in furnished accommodation abroad. Solvis and Co. (62 Oxford Street, WI, Museum 1998), who specialise in houses on the Costa Brava and the Italian and French Rivieras, have a fifty-page mimeographed catalogue costing 5s. which lists with brief and literally translated description ('collapsible bed in garage,' English furniture,' 'very cultivated one-floor villa') available property in France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. The largest section is devoted to the French Riviera, especially the popular centres, and they tell me that villas can be rented at bargain prices at Nice because `no one seems to want to go there these days.' It is very much more difficult to find anywhere in the beautiful and, for English people, less well-known area between Cassis and Saint Tropez. However, Mr. Kannard, of Solvis, and his partner take a lot of trouble to try to satisfy the individual whims and fancies of their clients. They also make sure that some, possibly mis- leading, descriptions sent in by French landlords are clearly understood. For instance, the adjective 'rustic' should usually be interpreted as meaning French plumbing (i.e. a hole in the ground). The Good Companion (5a Perrin's Walk, NW3, Hamp- stead 7471) is another helpful and reliable agency with connections in Majorca, Germany and Southern Italy as well as many French resorts.
Unpleasant surprises are much less likely if a letting is arranged through London agents, as most of the houses on their books have been tenanted by English families many times, and they deal with the same landlords year after year. But for many places the agencies have nothing to offer, and houses can be found only through direct correspondence with local agents, which may be slow and frustrating. A visit to the French Government Tourist Office (78 Piccadilly, WI) ' can be useful if the visitor knows what he is looking for or if he wants information about the important tourist centres, but anyone seeking guidance or suggestions about out-of-the-way places will be disappointed. Pamphlets on the major resorts, lists of their main estate agents and the usual advice to write to the local Syndicat d'Initiative is the extent of the advice that can be expected.
Only this year I came across the excellent ESSI (phonetic rendering of the initials SI, for syndicate d'initiative) guide booklets. They are, or should be, obtainable free from the French Tourist Office, but generally they seem to be out of stock, and in any case are reprinted and revised every year, but are not available until June or July, by which time they arc not much use to most British holidaymakers. At the Tourist Office, if a personal call is made, it Is possible to consult (after some insistence) a bound volume of these guides, the AnnuaireOfficiel. Their value is that they list even the smallest resorts in the area covered in each booklet, and also give lists of hotels and house agents and sometimes pictures of places to stay.
With villa-living goes housekeeping, as the long-suffering wife and mother knows. If the family is not addicted to English breakfasts, it is possible to keep costs down to what they would be in Britain (bacon is expensive in France). Fruit and vegetables are, of course, cheaper, eggs and cheese cost about the same as in England, while coffee, milk and fish (except in Brittany for the last) usually cost more. Where meat seems dearer it is usually because French, and indeed most continental, butchers never weigh bone, gristle or skin in with the meat. Tea becomes a luxury across the Channel—but why not take your own?—and for the wine-fancier the increased cost of eating well may be more than offset by the low cost of drinking.
To a certain extent, anyone who rents a villa through an agency (English or foreign) is buying a pig in a poke. The tenant pays whatever the agent thinks the market will bear and not the landlord's asking price, also the amenities may not live up to their description. The ideal method, impractical for most of us, is to stay in a hotel one year and look for a villa to rent for the next.
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When writing a few weeks ago about Bowyer's Britannia sausages, I erroneously mentioned Fortnum and Mason's as one of the shops where they may be found. Fortnum's sell their own sausages with a 90 per cent. meat content at seven shillings a pound, under the name of 'Fortnum and Mason's Special Sausages.'
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