Hotel Le Chene Vert St Pourcain sur Sioule

Again, this is about the food. Some of the rooms in this little hotel in northern Auvergne have been brought up to date, the others are quite old fashioned, all are on the small side. The decor is on the provincial/depressing side. But the restaurant, which once had a Michelin star, serves up extremely tasty regional fare. ( I recall having the absolute best skate cooked in butter and chives that I have ever tasted there). The prices are not prohibitive, a double can be had for $80, there' a prix fixe for $25, there is a substantial list of good, extremely affordable local wines. One can take in a genuine curiosity in the little town: There is a Romanesque church whose nave suddenly deviates at an angle of thirty degrees in its middle, as if the architect had changed his mind in mid construction. And there's a quite interesting wine museum in town for the oenophiles among you.

Grand Hotel Montespan-Talleyrand Bourbon L'Archambault

This little spa town in northernmost Auvergne was once the favorite of royalty for its restorative baths. Madame de Montespan, Madame de Sevigne and Talleyrand built substantial houses here in which to reside for the season. These three massive stone edifices, standing next to each other, were combined and transformed into a hotel in the late nineteenth century. Staying here is very much like stepping back into the Belle Epoque. The furniture, mostly wicker in the guest rooms, the decor, the wall paper all evoke it. There's a solarium full of tropical plants. One may still take the waters if one is so inclined, if not there's an outdoor pool. The cuisine is traditional, not to say old fashioned, cream sauces abound. In the stately dining room numerous old ladies eat at tables for one on which sit wine bottles that have been carefully marked th show the previous evening's level. And it won't break the bank, a double starts at $90, there's a prix fixe for $35.

Chateau de la Beguse Valbonne

Lets say you have a hankering for a few days of sun and swimming in the sea but would just as soon avoid the hullabaloo and most likely crippling expense of the big seaside palaces. It's hard to find a good little hotel in the away from the sea streets, most of them are designed to offer room and board to French families who are looking for cheap vacations and what is offered is just that. So perhaps here is your solution: Valbonne is a little town about eight miles inland from Cannes, you can be at the beach (there are quite a few nice ones which sell day tickets) in ten minutes. The chateau, a modernized seventeenth century sructure is a mile or so out of town, in a wood and on the side of an eighteen hole golf course. (I'm not a golfer so I can't comment on the quality of the play, neither on the greens fee, which at over a hundred dollars strikes me as high). The rooms are nicely decorated and extremely quiet in the night, something that can't be guaranteed on the Corniche in Cannes no matter how much you pay. There's a very nice outdoor pool, in good weather one dines on a terrace that overlooks the ninth hole. You can get a double for around $150 for the night, if you stay three nights the forth is free and, in all but July and August, if you can book two months ahead of time you get a 40% reduction.

Travels in Fairy Land: Le Relais de l'Empereur Montelimar

It was shortly after the end of World War II, we were driving from Paris to the Riviera (Yes, you little pipsqueak, they had cars back then}. It was a protracted journey, our car, an old La Salle that had been up on blocks throughout the war, broke down at least twice a day. One such breakdown occured in Montelimar, a mid size town in the Rhone valley. I found us a three star hotel, the three star Relais de l'Empereur, so named because Napoleon had stayed the night on his way to Paris on his return from Elba. (The following, successive headlines in a Paris newspaper of the day are an object lesson in the susceptibility of the media to the changes in politcal climate: The Corsican Monster Reported To Have Fled Elba. Bonaparte Lands in France. Napoleon in Lyon. The Emperor Makes His Triumphal Entry Into Paris). We had a well appointed, large room with a marble bath. We both ate a copious four course dinner and drank a good Cotes du Rhone. I made a longish phone call to Paris to get advice on what to do about the car The next morning we had a full breakfast. The bill for ALL of this came to eight dollars and fifty cents. Now, one has to keep in mind that the French economy was still in shambles from the war; the dollar was king, while it had been pegged at five French francs before the war it was now trading at 350; and these were the provinces. For all the obvious reasons you won't be able to replicate the experience today, but it remains ineradicably etched in my memory. Anyway, the next day we were in Cannes and back in the real world.

Les Baux de Provence Auberge de la Benvengudo

One has to keep in mind that Provence and the Riviera are not exactly recent discoveries as vacation destinations -- the British were already flocking there in the middle of the nineteenth century and nowadays, in season, there are hordes of French and foreign tourists and most hotels are fully booked. This means that the top hotels charge fantasy prices and even at the lower levels you'll hardly find any bargains. My preference is to stay inland, I no longer much care for the frenetic atmosphere of the seaside resorts. Les Beaux is an unbelievably picturesque village of stone houses that perch on the top of an escarpment. There's a massive castle and there are fantastic views of the surrounding countryside and the Rhone delta. Benvengudo means welcome in the Provencal dialect, and this is what you will experience in this pleasant converted farmhouse situated at the base of the citadel. The rooms are decorated in the local style with a profusion of brightly printed cottons, the prevailing atmosphere is one of contented relaxation. There is a delightful garden where, on warm evenings (which in Provence can persist well into fall) a fixed menu which varies with what was on offer at the market that day is served. Doubles start at $150 for the night.

Hotel Lameloise Chagny

Alright, so I admit this is a stretch, but I'm of the opinion that everyone should treat himself to a three star Michelin meal at least once in a lifetime. (We did many years ago when the French franc which had for years been pegged at five to the dollar suddenly nosedived to ten to one and this sort of thing was very affordable). Chagny is a pleasant little market town in central Burgundy, near Beaune. The Hotel Lameloise, a onetime coaching inn, has been thoroughly modernized, the rooms, while not large, are beautifully decorated in top quality materials. The bathrooms are perfect. But what it's all about is the food. Exquisite care is taken in its preparation. When we ate here I had ordered a dish of sweetbreads as a first course and when it was brought to the table the gas flame underneath the presentation dish had blown out on the way from the kitchen. Noticing this, the maitre d'hotel, with profuse appologies to us, told the waiter to take it back, I could not possibly be presented with a dish that was not at the proper temperature, they would cook me a new dish of sweetbreads, it would only be a matter of ten minutes. They would of course cook madame's first course afresh as well. Well, it was worth the wait, every course of that meal was memorable. As a main course I had the filet mignon with lightly braised foie gras -- the meat was so tender that it could easily be cut with a fork. While the larger rooms are out of sight, one can get a standard one for under two hundred dollars for the night. It's the restaurant that's pricey, the cheapest prix fixe is $135. Oh well, have dinner at one of the ubiquitous MacDonalds the next evening, that will even things out.

Hotel La Montagne de Brancion

Burgundy in the first instance is about wine. The Burgundies, particularly the reds, are heavier than clarets and, as a result, in order to stand up to them, the cuisine, which is butter based, also tends to be heavier than that of most other regions of France. On a prolonged stay you'll eat well, but you'll gain weight. The Maconnais, in the south of the province, is a lush , hilly area that mostly produces mass market wines. It is a veritable nest of Romanesque churches. (I've often asked myself why it is that so many churches and so few secular buildings remain from the period. The obvious answer that churches don't have to provide much in creature comforts doesn't quite satisfy: houses that lack amenities don't necessarily have to be torn down and rebuilt, they can always be renovated). For me, the greatest of these is the abbey church of St Philibert in Tournus. which represents the full flowering of eleventh century omanesque. On the outside it has a somewhat strange appearance, the tower looks as if a fully fledged Carolingian church were perched atop of it, but on the inside all is harmony and elegance. In contrast to the somewhat squat appearance of Auvergne Romanesque everything soars upward. The culptured capitals are very fine indeed. There are several good hotels in the town and two restaurants with a Michelin star, but in summer it can be both hot and noisy and I generally prefer to stay some ten miles away, on top of the Brancion pass. The hotel is situated on the outskirts of a picturesque hamlet. It has functional, modern rooms, there are beautiful views of the vineyards streching out below, there's a small castle nearby, and an outdoor pool. The food is well prepared classical Burgundian cuisine. In season a double goes for about $140 for a night. A visit to nearby Taize, the famous interdenominational religious center, will put one in touch with the huge enthusiasm of the mostly young visitors there.

Hotel Poste et Champane Brioude

What you have here is your archtypical French small town hotel, pretty much as it was a century ago. Not that the facilities are totally out of date, particularly in the modern annex which is to be preferred they're just fine, but the atmosphere is that of an establishment intended for commercial travelers and farm families coming into town on market days. Those folks expect their money's worth and they get it here. A double room can be had for under seventy dollars for the night, on weekdays there is a rich, wholesome Auvergnat three course prix fixe for $20. Brioude is a bustling market town, if you get there on a market day it's great fun to check out the flea market; it's mostly junk of course, but the occasional treasure lurks in wait. The twelfth century Romanesque church is remarkable in that the interior has been repainted in the original, fierce, almost gaudy reds and blues instead of the sterile white that characterizes so many old churches. One gets a real feeling for what a medieval church interior looked and felt like. Some five miles from Brioude one can visit the twelfth century abbey of Lavaudieu which has splendid Romanesque frescoes.

Hotel l'Esplanade Domme.

This well run traditional establishment has a truly magnificent view of a huge horseshoe bend of the Dordogne river. The rooms are well fitted out, some of them are quite large. The restaurant serves a hearty cuisine with strong accents of the Midi. A double in the offseason costs about $120. Domme is a walled village made up of mostly stone houses. It is at the heart of the Perigord and the specialty of the region, duck and goose foie gras is sold in every other shop. Some farms where the fowl are raised may be visited and you can also buy direct from the producer, but I should warn the animal lovers among you that the force feeding of the fowl is not a pretty sight. PETA, at any rate, does not seem a major force in France.

Hotel Du-Midi Papillon St Jean du Bruel

Some European hotels, like the Midi-Papillon, have been owned by five or six generations of the same family and never change their character. (This, clearly, is not always so. I recall one vey pleasant small mountain hotel in the western Pyrenees at which I once spent a very agreeable two weeks on a skiing vacation which subsequently changed hands and for some years was operated as a bordello. This interesting particular apparently went unobserved by the Michelin inspectors, who never changed their evaluation of the place throughout the whole of this period.) Anyway, the Midi-Papillon is the quintessential small French family hotel. Madame herself presides charmingly over the dining room, the fare is regional, lovingly prepared, with ample portions. The rooms are on the small side but nicely decorated, the bathrooms are adequate to one's needs. And all this comes at an astonishingly modest price. One can get a half pension arrangement (three day minimum stay in season) which includes a double room, a three course dinner and breakfast with lovely homemade jams for just over sixty dollars per person per day. You won't find a better deal throughout the length and breadth of France, but book early, there are only eighteen rooms and they're snapped up well ahead of time. The village of St Jean du Bruel has an imposing medieval stone bridge. It's lies cheek by jowl with Roquefort which produces the undisputed monarch of all blue cheeses. Half a dozen or so caves can be visited, tasting samples are provided so that you can decide which brand will henceforth be your favorite.

Hotel le Cro Magnon les Eyzies de Tayac; Hotella Madelaine Sarlat la Caneda France

The Dordogne is first of all about prehistory. Some of the world's finest examples of cave painting are found here; unfortunately, while some of the lesser caves, such as the Grotte de Font de Gaume are on display, because it was found that the emanations from large number of daily visitors caused these to deteriorate all the more famous ones can only be visited on written application. If you are willing to take the trouble and can come up with the requisite academic credentials (an academic snobbery that cannot even be encompassed by Americans prevails in France) this is eminently worth doing. But the Dordogne is also about following the river as it makes its sinuous way through the lovely countryside. Les Eyzies de Tayac is a charming village plunked down in a green river valley. The Hotel Le Cro Magnon, nestled against a cliff, while its level of comfort is well above what its name implies, is nevertheless a traditional, rather old fashioned French country hotel. The rooms are quite large, but don't expect much in the way of luxury. Sadly, the restaurant has now lost the Michelin star it once had, but the food is still very good in a traditional manner. A double is about $100.

Sarlat la Caneda is a small town in the Dordogne region that, in its city center, is perhaps the best preserved exemplar of medieval secular architecture in France. The market place in particular looks precisely as it must have appeared in the middle ages. One has the feeling that one is walking not in a town but in a museum. The Hotel La Madelaine is an imposing nineteenth century structure near the center. The rooms have been completely modernized and the bathrooms are very spruce indeed. There is also a sophisticated spa. A double room costs about$100.The restaurant serves very nicely prepared regional dishes, or you can try Le Grand Bleu near the station, which has a Michelin star and offers a three course pix fixe for $40.

Auberge du Poids Public St Felix Lauragais; Hotel Ste Foy Conques France

Toulouse is a vibrant city of some 400,000 inhabitants, to my mind the finest in all the south of France. It's greatest glory is undoubtedly the great basilica of St Sernin, which dates from the 1060's, with some of the finest early Romanesque sculpture anywhere in the world. In addition there are beautifully laid out eighteenth century arcaded squares where one finds a great profusion of luxurious shops as well as several specialty food stores which rival what is on offer in Paris. I find I can easily spend half an hour just looking at the show windows of one of these, the mere sight of all those delicacies evokes Lucullan feasts. Unfortunately, as is the case with all the big cities in France, hotels present a problem. The big ones are overpriced (although not to the degree that this is the case in the capital) and the smaller ones tend to have marginal amenities and to be noisy. My solution to this problem is to stay at the Auberge du Poids Public in St Felix Lauragais, a twenty minute drive to the southeast. The hotel, formerly a coaching in which was the public weighing station for the little town (the old scales are still in place in front of the building) is a quintessential example of what, in my introduction, I said about the relationship between food and lodging in France. Only the dining room has any scale to it, the salon is infinitessimal, the bedrooms small. But the restaurant, which has a Michelin star, is very good indeed. It offers a delectable prix fixe of regional dishes for $42 and has a number of good and affordable local wines that you won't encounter elsewhere. A room is about $100 for the night.

Hotel Ste Foye Conques. Conques, about an hour's drive to the northeast of Toulouse, is an abiding wonder. One drives for many miles on winding roads through the all but uninhabited region of the gorges of the river Tarn, toward the end there's an uphill stretch, one rounds a bend, and there, suddenly, as if by miraculous intervention, one is confronted by an enormous Romanesque abbey sitting in the middle of a tiny hamlet of some three hundred souls. What in God's name (so to speak) could ever have led to such an anomaly? The story is straightforward enough. Conques sits athwart the Pilgrimage Road to Santiago but there was nothing there to cause the pilgrims to halt their progress. So one day, early in the twelfth century, the village elders came up with a plan: they infiltrated a local priest into a monastery of a nearby town where the relics of an important saint, Ste Foy, a little girl who had been martyred in Roman times, were kept and where the pilgrims routinely made an overnight stop to venerate them, which of course resulted in considerable financial gain for the inhabitants. The priest spent some years gaining the confidence of the monks until he was entrusted with the key to the reliquary, whereupon he stole the relics and brought them to Conques. When the townsmen appeared, demanding their return, the vilagers appealed to the saint herself: she should give a sign where she wished to be interred. And, lo, blind men in the crowd suddenly saw and cripples suddenly danced. So Ste Foye remained in Conques, the pilgrims now flocked there, and the proceeds of her translation were so ample that the great abbey could eventually be built. The massive tympanon on the West Portal is one of the eternal glories of High Romanesque. The Hotel Ste Foye, which overlooks the abbey, is a seventeenth century stone structure which has been well renovated. It's a mixed bag: the rooms, with nice old exposed beams, are however not large and, at $150 for a night;s stay, are clearly overpriced. On the other hand the restaurant serves nice regional food, there's a good prix fixe at $25.

Hotel les Pyrenees St Jean Pied de Port; Hotel Artzain Echea Esterencuby France

St Jean Pied de Port is a delightful little Pyreneean town. It lies some thirty miles inland from the Atlantic coast at the head of a river valley. There are splendid mountain views and the town serves as a center for all imaginable varieties of mountain sports and treks. If it's been thought of you can do it there. I will suggest two different hotels, very different in the level of luxury which they provide and, of course in price.





Hotel Les Pyrenees is in the center of town, installed in a onetime coaching inn. This has been thoroughly modernized, the rooms are elegant and spacious, the bathrooms could almost be described as sumptuous, there is an atmosphere of refined elegance about the place. There is a nice outdoor pool surounded by an elegant garden.Even with all that, the main attraction is undoubtedly the restaurant. This is the proud bearer of two Michelin stars (alright, technically these are rosettes, but nobody calls them as that), the cuisine is a Basque inspired expedition into the realms of the imagination, offering such curiosities as an foie gras and truffle lasagna and any number of cray fish dishes. The least expensive set menu is about $65. The rooms in season go for around $240 but you can do a lot better out of season.





Hotel Artzain Echea is some five miles upriver, in the hamlet of Esterencuby. It's built on a slope directly above the stream. At night you'll be carried off to sleep by the sound of the stream rushing by. The rooms, while small, are pretty and extremely well kept, the bathrooms are adequate. The cuisine is Basque family cooking, hearty and very tasty. The valley provides hikes through spectacular mountain scenery, in season you can opt for both hunting and fishing arrangements and there's an outdoor pool. If you're looking for an uncomplicated few days in beautiful surroundings this is your ticket. A prix fixe menu runs to about $35, the rooms cost $70.

Hotel de la Poste Oust France

At this point I propose to construct a French itinerary, not none starting out in Paris, but rather on the assumption that one flies in Barcelona and drives north. I chose this route for the very idiosyncratic reason that there are some parts of France that I like a lot better than others and these are where I tend to travel. Others will doubtless have different preferences.

The French, as a people, are serious eaters. Typically, they will spend a larger proportion of their disposable income on food than either Americans or Brits do. This obviously leaves them with less to spend on their housing. This translates itself into the hotel world in a noticeable manner. While the five star palaces are as elaborate and luxurious as anywhere in the world, these days they range in their prices from the merely outrageous to the effectively ruinous, To cite but one example, the cheapest double at the Hotel du Cap on the Cote D'azur goes for $ 680 for the night, a suite will cost you $2,200. At the lower levels the prices, while still high, are at least in the range of many travellers. However, one often finds that an establishment that boasts of a truly marvelous restaurant will have rooms, that while certainly scrupulously clean and adequate to one's needs, may well be small and furnished in a glaringly outmoded way; the bathrooms, while always serviceable and clean, will tend to be oldfashioned as well, a pull chain toilet is often still encountered. (A word of caution here, in the southwest, in cafes and gas stations, one still often finds oneself confronted with a Turkish toilet, unlike in Spain, where the toilet culture is at a very high level). One should not let oneself be put off by any of this: one is there to eat and to see the country, not to wallow in luxury.

Oust is a tiny, picturesque village on the northern slope of the Pyrenees. The Hotel de la Poste is an old fashioned, late nineteenth century building, the rooms are quite small, the furniture seems to be original, the usual French wardrobes which, in most French hotels take the place of closets, tend to be hard to open and close. But it's extremely quiet at night and the mattresses are good. There's a pleasant garden in which, in good weather, one takes one's meals and a small outdoor pool. But the food is absolutely superb. It's not your ultra fahionable nouvelle cuisine, but nor is it grandma's cooking. What it is rather, is first rate French cooking as it was half a century ago, and to my taste nothing surpasses tha level. There is a very fine fixed price three course menu that goes for under forty dollars and I've never tried anything on it that I didn't like: I recall having a duo of slightly sauteed goose and duck foie gras as a first course which to this day brings tears to my eyes. And if one isn't up to two big meals on the same day, for lunch there is a bakery nearby which makes the absolutely best croissants I have tasted, the most buttery, the most crisp. Next door there's a butcher shop with a very decent assortment of lunchmeats and cheeses and there is nolack of pretty spots to picnic in within easy reach of Oust. A room at the hotel goes for about $75 for the night, including a very nice continental breakfast with a generous assortment of homemade jams. The surrounding countryside has great charm, there a re good hiking and biking trails and, for the more adventurous,one can rent kayaks for white water boating.

Parador Argomaniz; Parador Soria; Parador Lerma Spain

The parador of Argomaniz is a former Renaissance palace in an isolated location, overlooking the plain of Alava. It served as the Napoleonic headquarters during a portion of the Peninsular War. The public rooms are large and sumptously decorated, a considerable number of the standard bedrooms are, while very nice in themselves, unfortunately overlook a garbage dump but, except in the high season, you can generally book a "superior" room on one of the online discount sites for not much over half price. Nearby lies the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, nowadays the seat of the Basque government, under whose walls Wellington defeated the French. Any number of Riojan vineyards in the region offer free wine tastings.

The parador of Soria, a newbuild, lies to the south, across the border in Castille. It sits high above the town on a hilltop with splendid views of town and coutryside. There's a pleasant park surrounding it and, a rarity in paradors, an indoor pool. The rooms are spacious and well furnished. In the city there are three Romanesque churches. Santo Domingo is in the French style, with a magnificent twelfth century portal; San Juan de Rabanera is remarkable for the Byzantine influences it displays; the cloister, which is all that remains of San Juan de Duero down by the river, has intersecting arches which derrive straight from Moorish art. Soria, in the time of Alfonso VIII and his consort Eleanor Plantagenet, served as a capital of the realm, which may well account for these cosmopolitan elements.

Lerma, to the west, is a smallish town where, in the early seventeenth century, Philip III's favorite, the extravagantly corrupt Duke of Lerma, built a palace to receive his master along with a plaza surrounded by stone houses for the large number of retainers he maintained. The whole makes for a very imposing complex. The palace itself, with its severe stone facade, is now the parador. Everything on the interior strives for a majestic effect, the bedrooms are large and sumptuously furnished. For whatever reason, the food in the dining room struck me as not up to parador standards, but there are excellent restaurants within easy walking distance. Nearby is the city of Burgos, the capital of Castille in the middle ages, with its splendid Gothic cathedral, the third largest in Spain, and the foremost example of the Spanish Flamboyant style. Madrid is little more than an hour's drive from Lerma, a straight shot down the A1 motorway.

Parador Cervera de Pisuerga; Parador Santillana del Mar; Parador Limpias Spain.

The Pisuerga is a remote, wild, thinly populated region in the northern part of the province of Palencia, on the southern flank of the Picos de Europa range. The parador, a newbuild that resembles an oversize hunting lodge, is, on the interior, a mix of massive stone walls and huge wooden beams. It sits on a ridge in the midst of a forrested area, overlooking the Picos from the front and a distant reservoir from the back. The views on both sides are spectacular, even though you are somewhat farther from the mountains than at Fuente De. This is a very peaceful place in which to rest up from some hard days of touring, the grounds encompass some very pleasant footpaths.

Santillana del Mar is a small Cantabrian town, little more than a village, perched atop a hillside near the Mar Caqntabrico. The place was an important pilgrimage center in the middle ages, being the burial place of St Juliana (Santillana). As a result a number of nobiliar mansions, all bearing the nobiliar coats of arms of their owners was built there in the fifteenth century so that these gentlemen might reside there in comfort once they had finished their pilgimmage. These all still stand, along with a considerable number of smaller houses of the period and, having been conscientiously restored, give a museum like impression of what a late medieval Spanish town looked like. The twelfth century church has some very fine Romanesque carvings. The parador, built around an inner courtyard, is actually two separate paradors. Depending on the time of the year, one or the other or both might be open. The original one is a newbuild constructed to resemble the aforesaid mansions; the newer one, surnamed Gil Blas, occupies a seventeenth century nobiliar mansion. Both are well furnished and comfortable. A short drive will take you to the beach, but the main attraction here is undoubtedly the cave of Altamira. This is one of the genuine wonders of the world, containing marvelous paintings dating from 15,000 to 12,000 B.C. The cave is called the Sistine chapel of Prehistory, when the numerous bison on its ceiling are suddenly lit up by the guide a frisson of awe inevitably goes through the visitors. But be sure to reserve your tickets on line at least a couple of months ahead of your visit, entries to the cave are limited to a certain number each day and are snapped up fast.

Limpias is a small Cantabrian fishing village. The parador is a summer palace built for Alfonso XII in the nineteenth century, in the summers the court resided here. There are pleasant gardens surrounding the structure, there's a tennis court and several beaches are within easy reach.

Quirks & Quips II

Spain in the summer is a hot country. Madrid lies on the 4oth parallell, roughly the same as New York, without the moderating effect of the Atlantic which the latter city enjoys at least occasionally. To counteract the effects of the heat the Spanish long ago devised the sensible expedient of the siesta. This can vary from region to region, but in general what happens that all but the largest department stores and most offices, both public and private, and a great many of the museums close their doors and pull down the shutters at half-past-one in the afternoon, not to reopen until five, when everyone goes back to work for another three hours. At siesta time people go home for a long lunch, generally stopping off at a corner bar for a quick glass of wine first, and after lunch lie down for a nap. This state of affairs has two consequences for the tourist: he is left to fend for himself over the long noon hour, practically everything is closed. This is a good time of day to do one's driving, the roads are deserted, the truckers have all pulled off to the side to have their lunches in roadside restaurants. And it means that the dinner hour is very late, much later than Americans are accustomed to. No city restaurant opens its doors until nine in the evening (many but not all of the paradors try to accomodate their foreign guests by starting service in their comedors at 8:30). But of course no self respecting Spaniard would dream of showing up anywhere for dinner at nine. On more than one occasion I have been finishing up my dinner in a provincial restaurant at around eleven in the evening, at which time a family with small children would walk in to start theirs. I suppose this must have been on a Saturday night when the kids didn;t have to be in school early the next morning. We have found it expedient to have a small snack with our pre dinner drinks to ward off the worst of the hunger pains. The ubiquitous bars are a Spanish institution in themselves. One stops in there for a morning coffee, usually laced with a shot of the local brandy, before going to work, and, as I've mentioned, before going home to lunch. The regulars all know one another, conversations are animated and often carried on in carrying voices across the whole length of the room. (There are two rules to be followed when speaking Spanish in public: speak as loudly and as quickly as you are capable of doing). Tapas, small portions of local delicacies such as raw ham, fresh anchovies, Russian eggs, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, tortillas (slices of omelet in which potatoes have been worked in) are consumed along with one's wine and beer. These used to be free, "un regalo", which was your inducement to stop in for the wine. But I last encountered complimentary tapas in a bar in Pisuerga, in the Province of Palencia, in the 90's.( My Charming Dinner Companion has just informed me that I'm suffering from a serious memory defect -- we got free tapas with our wine and beer in a bar in Avila last fall. So it would seem that, at least in Spain, there is still such a thing as a free lunch.

Something else that a foreigner has to get used to in the bars is that all manner of debris, crumpled up Spanish undersize napkins, candy wrappers, even stamped out cigarette butts litter the floors, which are swept only at closing time. The air is thick with smoke, Spaniards being inveterate smokers, so much so that some people in my circle of friends resist having lunch in a bar although it's by far the cheapest, quickest and most convenient solution to the lunch problem when one is on the road. Lunch in a restaurant can easily take up to two hours and I, for one, don't really want to eat two heavy meals a day, three if one is having a parador breakfast. Earlier this year a new law was introduced in Spain, banning all smoking in public places, bars included. I look forward very much to experience the benefits of this law when we shall be travelling in Spain in November.

Quips & Quirks

Every country has its foibles. Travelling in Spain, you eventually encounter a good many of these and I propose to describe a few of them here. I'll begin with what, in our times, is undoubtedly a universal nuisance but has bitten Spain particularly badly: graffiti. In the States one sees them in every large city but they seem to be governed by an unwritten social contract. They're painted on railway trestles, warehouses, inner city tenements, abandonned buildings and the like, but not generally on public buildings. And most of them have some small pretention to artistic merit, being the totems of youthful gangs which compete with one another in creating eye catching symbols. In Spain, as in many European countries, graffiti are a form of political expression, no more, no less. No surface is spared from being scrawled on on behalf of some cause or other. I have seen the sides of twelfth century churches in this manner, it's as if we went in for writing on the walls of the Jefferson monument. The local authorities do their best to clean these up, but graffiti when erased leave ugly smears, the only solution is to repaint the entire surface and that only encourages the daubers to start over again. No cause is too arcane to become the subject of a graffiti campaign. I recall driving through the northwestern part of the country in the 80's and encountering smeared signs everywhere that read "Ocalitos No!" ,with the addition of a hammer and sickle. I had little Spanish at the time, my little travel dictionary didn't define ocalitos, I thought it might be the Spanish acronym for NATO or some other hated Western institution. I eventually found out that it referred to eucalyptus trees. From the middle ages onward Spain had undergone a gradual deforestation. The clearing of wooded areas to create additional grazing for the immense herds of sheep that roamed freely over the land, the need for firewood, the demands of the construction and shipbuilding industries all combined to denude the land. The building of the Spanish Armada in the sixteenth century by itself was responsible for the deforestation of a whole district in Andalusia. By the 1900's this had reached critical levels throughout the country, the typical results of deforestation, erosion and chronic landslides were devastating the countryside in society which was still largely agricultural and could not counterbalance these losses by stepping up industrial exports. One of the few positive elements of the four decades of Franco's rule, along with the building of a large network of artificial lakes for irrigation, was a massive reforestation program. Someone found out that the Australian eucalyptus tree is hardy, grows very fast, requires little water to survive and reproduces itself at a rapid rate, so whole groves were planted in Galicia and Asturias. But, as is the case with many alien species, as we have experienced with carps and the like, the eucalyptus tree is invasive and rapidly replaces native trees. The groves soon turned into forests and there is no denying that, at least by European esthetic standards, compared to oaks and birches, it's an ugly tree. But I couldn't help but wonder which was uglier, the eucalyptus forests or the proliferation of smeared graffiti denouncing their existence?

Then there is the matter of separatism. In theory Spain is a unified country, but there is hardly a province that doesn't have its own separatist movement. (The one exception is Andalusia, the largest but also the poorest of Spain's provinces, which is supported mostly by contributions from the industrial North. There the inhabitants have the good sense to realise that, cut adrift, they'd rapidly starve.) The most notorious case is that of the Basques who for decades conducted an armed rebellion which only ended fairly recently when the central government agreed to widespread concessions. Long before that, it had been agreed that all road signs in the Basque region be in two languages, Spanish and Basque, the latter being totally unrelated to any other European language. This was taken up as a challenge by the militant separatists who proceded to paint out the Spanish texts on all the signs. The result was that a situation might arise in which you came upon a road sign which, if you happened to know Basque (which very few non-Basques do) informed you to stop at once, the road went over the side of a cliff a quarter of a mile further on. The results were predictable. That never quite happened to me, but I well remember driving around in circles trying to find my way out of the large city of Vittoria-Gasteiz and not finding a single sign that I could read. Catalonia too is dominated by separatist sentiment. The Catalans however have the advantage of possessing the lion's share of Spain's industrial productive capacity and have long used that as a lever to extract concessions from the central government. All instruction is now in Catalan, Spanish is taught as a second language, all road signs are in Catalan only (Catalan is a halfway house between Spanish and French so that if one knows one or the other of these languages one can puzzle out their meaning). A certain proportion of the taxes collected in Catalonia must, by law, stay in the province. The separatism goes so far that these days the Catalans even have their own ice hockey team, separate from the national one. (If the rivalry between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona descends any further into the open antagonism that has been the hallmark of recent matches, this will be happen in soccer as well, which will certainly end the era of Spanish domination of the sport). Galicia also is a hotbed of separatist sentiment. The local dialect is closer to Portuguese than it is to Spanish and there are close cultural affinities with that country. The Galicians however are not stupid. They have a reputation for being both canny and crafty (Franco was a Galician) and they're perfectly capable of recognizing that, even by Spanish standards, Portugal is an extremely poor country so that while the Galician separatist do their best to extract concessions on the part of the central government, their ambitions stop well short of actually breaking away to affiliate with Portugal. The most ludicrous example of Spanish separatism that I encountered though was in the Bierzo, a small, remote, primitive mountain area in the western part of the province of Leon, on the border with Galicia. It contains one overgrown village, Villafranca del Bierzo, the entire district has a population of under ten thousand, the main industry seems to be a parador, the worst I've ever stayed in, with wallpaper peeling off the walls in the guest rooms, dripping sinks and non functional toilets. But every available surface in the area was covered with graffiti that proclaimed "Leon No! Galicia No! Bierzo Independiente!" An independent Bierzo would be lucky to survive for one week.

This will be continued anon.

Parador El Ferrol; Parador Ribadeo; Parador Vilalba Spain

Here are three more Galician paradors. (Why some regions of Spain are thick with paradors while they are few and far between in others ia a mystery to me.) El Ferrol is a pretty harbor town close to Cape Finistere, the westernmost part of Europe and across the bay from the major city of A Coruna. The parador, a newbuild, is constructed to resemble a Galician urban mansion, some of the rooms have the traditional glassed in balconies. The harbor views are pleasing. If one arrives from Santiago a problem arises because one has to drive through all of the town and there isn't even one of the usual parador sign posts. I was told that this was the result of an ongoing dispute between the regional and national governments.

Ribadeo, on the Asturian border, is another smallish harbor town. The parador, another newbuild, is situated to overlook the estuary of the river Eo and has an impressive view of the Cantabrian sea. There are numerous beaches nearby and in midsummer the water briefly gets warm enough to swim in. There is a nearby bird sanctuary and any number of of indentations of the coast (rios), many of which remain uninhabited and present a wild, primitive aspect that eerily recall the time when cavemen roamed these lands.

Vilalba is a small inland town. The old part of the parador, a massive stone tower, was originally the keep of a large castle. There are only eight guestrooms in it and they cost rather more than those in the new part, which is built to resemble a rich merchant's residence, but if you want to experience what sleeping in a medieval castle must have been like, treat yourself to one of these. The city of Lugo, which was the capital of Roman Galicia, is nearby. It has fine third century Roman walls, Roman baths, and a twelfth century Roman cathedral.

Parador Leon Spain

The parador, one of the two with a five star rating in the chain, is a former commandery of the Order of Santiago. This is a religious/military institution, founded in the twelfth century, for the twin purposes of protecting the Pilgrimage Road and providing medical services to pilgrims. Like the crusading orders it requires that its members be of noble birth, and like the Templars and Hospitalers it did not stint itself when it came to creature comforts. The building is a splendind sixteenth century palace, the public rooms are numerous, vast and sumptuous. The bedrooms in the old part are huge and have four poster beds but are considered to be suites and are priced accordingly. If you are willing to book a room in the new part (these are standard parador rooms) you can usually get one for $150 for the night. The only possible minus is that there is generally some sort of function scheduled and the bar, in particular, can get pretty crowded. Leon, once the capital of an independent kingdom, is a bustling city. There are two churches of outstanding interest. The huge Gothic cathedral is built in the French style. Spanish Gothic has a tendecy to be muscular, even squat, but not here. The cathedral soars upward in the style of Chartres and Notre Dame. There is a profusion of stained glass windows, the finest in Spain. And then there is the church of San Isidoro. Originally Romanesque, it was later Gothicized with, however the significant exception of the Pantheon, the burial place of the Kings and Queens of Leon. This is possibly the earliest Romanesque in the province, with beautifully carved capitals. The twelfth century frescoes are absolutely outstanding, depict the usual biblical motifs and, much rarer, scenes of daily life. The Treasury contains two of the finest objects of eleventh century religious art in the world, the chalice of Dona Urraca and a carved ivory reliquary. A twenty mile drive brings one to San Miguel de Escalada. This church, dating from 1050, is the best preserved Mozarabic building in Spain and incorporates an early tenth century chapel, a fascinating blend of Visigothic and Mozarabic styles.

Parador Ciudad Rodrigo; Parador Benavente. Parador Puebla de Sanabria Spain

Ciudad Rodrigo is located close to the Portuguese border, west of Salamanca. It is yet another Spanish hilltop town which features a cathedral that is part late Romanesque, part Gothic. The parador is a fifteenth century fortress with a massive block tower that dominates the landscape stretching out below it. The interior is impressively medieval, the rooms are large and well furnished. I must in candor say that this was the one parador dining experience that I found really disappointing, the food was simply badly prepared; but this was some years ago and the chef may well have been replaced. The surrounding plain is mostly grasslands interspersed with groves of oak trees under which herds of fighting bulls shelter from the sun. Interestingly, these massive beasts, so fierce in the bull ring, are quite placid when in a herd, although I still wouldn't recommend trying to pet them if they come up to the fence.

Benavente is located halfway between Zamora and Leon. The town has a fine Romanesque church as well as a transitional one with two extremely good Romanesque portals and a beautiful thirteenth century Annunciation. The parador, overlooking a finely proportioned square, is located in a fifteenth century Renaissance palace built of red brick. The public rooms have great coffered ceilings. Some bedrooms have splendid views of the surrounding countryside. There is an outdoor pool.

Puebla de Sanabria is a convenient place for an overnight stopover if one is driving from Zamora to Santiago de Compostela. It's a mountain village close to the Portuguese border with a fifteenth century castle built by the Counts of Benavente and a late Romanesque church. The parador, a newbuild, is a little distance away with a very fine view of the ensemble. An eminently worthwhile excursion is to the nearby lake of Sanabria, the largest glacial lake in Spain, overlooking which there's a very good Romanesque church. The last time I was there the local curate had come up with an ingenious solution to the problem of keeping the churchyard grass mowed: there was a donkey tethered in it, happily grazing.

Back to Spain: Hotel Rector Salamanca

I propose now to write about the paradors I've liked but not reviewed before, as well as a hotel or two in that category. For the sake of convenience I shall arrange them roughly in a clockwise circle from Madrid, although this is not meant to be a strictly followed itinerary -- it would certainly be exhausting for all but the most indefatigable travellers.

The Salamanca parador, like the one in Segovia, is an uninspiring newbuild in an ugly, outlying part of the city. For my part I prefer staying at the Hotel Rector. It's somewhat pricier than the parador but not prohibitively so. For that the location can't be beat, it's right next to the main square. The Rector is a traditional late nineteenth century hotel palace, with huge public spaces and the traditional Spanish interior courtyard. The rooms vary in size from the adequate to the huge, the bathrooms are tastefully decked out in marble. There's free internet access. Salamanca is great fun to explore. The Plaza Mayor is perhaps the finest in Spain. A gift to the city from the Bourbon king Philip V as thanks for having supported him in the civil war that ousted the Habsburgs, it was designed by the master Spanish architects of the century, the Churriguera brothers. Marvelously proportioned arcades support three storeys on all four sides of the square, the effect being one of perfect harmony. And on rainy days, which for whatever reason have dogged me every time I've been in Salamanca, one is grateful for the shelter offered under the arcades. The main pedestrian thoroughfare that leads from the square to the university not only offers a wide variety of shops but has numerous examples of Spanish Plateresque, an art for that could be described as stick-on decoration. The best of these is the fifteenth century Casa de las Conchas. Just before the university one encounters the wonderfully harmonious Patio de las Escuelas, a perfectly proportioned tiny square with Plateresque on all four sides. The university, with a truly sumptuous fifteenth century carved gate, is among the oldest in the world, tracing its origins back to 1218. In the middle ages it rivaled Bologna as a center of canon law. Just beyond lies the unusual connected double cathedral. The "new" is sixteenth century with later additions, an interesting mix of late Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles; the "old" is a very fine example of twelfth century High Romanesque, with a lovely cloister.

Strandhotel Belvedere Spiez Switzerland

Spiez is a charming little lakeside town in the Bernese Oberland. It's a haven of tranquility within easy reach of Berne. The hotel is sited right on the shore of Lake Thun, with splendid views of both the lake and the Bernese Alps. It has a small spa and an excellent restaurant with a very respectable rating in the Gault Millaud restaurant guide. It's rated as a four star although that's probably a stretch, the furnishings are on the old fashioned side and the rooms have exposed radiators. This is a very nice place for a quiet weekend with a choice of many excursions, both on the lake and on land. Unfortunately the prices are considerably too high for what's on offer. Even in the low season a double room with breakfast included is S.F. 290. (Priceline lists this at $435, which is ludicrous). This leads me to the conclusion that these days the Swiss have priced themselves out of sight, certainly well above my means. Beautiful as the country is, I cannot in good conscience go on recommending hotels at these prices.

Hotel de la Paix Lausanne Switzerland

For me Lausanne is a preferable base from which to explore French speaking Switzerland (La Suisse Romande) than Geneva. It's a smaller, more manageable city, less pretentious and marginally cheaper. It's located on the shore of the Leman (Lake Geneva) so that one can take the lake steamer for a day trip to the larger city or, in the opposite direction, to visit the meticulously restored medieval castle in Chillon. There is of course, as everywhere in Switzerland, a very good train service as well. The Hotel de la Paix is a four star overlooking the lake, but also within easy walking distance of the business center. It is meticulously kept, the rooms are of a good size. Free internet service is provided. At the moment one can Priceline a double room for $276 per night, which is about 10% below the rack rate.

Hotel Mont Cervin Zermatt Switzerland

Zermatt, the crown jewell of the Valais (Wallis in German) is unique. First of all the entire village is, for practical purposes, a pedestrian zone. Non resident cars are not allowed, one leaves one's car in a guarded parking down in the valley (15 S.F. daily) and takes a mountain railway. The first glimpse of the Matterhorn as one emerges from the last tunnel is unforgettable -- there is no peak in the Alps, perhaps not in the whole world, which rises in such magnificent, isolated splendor. It simply takes one's breath away. A horse drawn carriage picks you up to the station and conveys you and your luggage to the hotel.Alexander Seiler, a mid nineteenth century Zermatt resident and budding entrepreneur recognized its potential to attract both tourists and potential climbers of the mountain and, in 1855, opened the Monte Rosa inn. When, some ten years later, after many unsuccessful attempts by others, the Englishman Edward Whymper finally succeeded in reaching the top, an ascent that ended with a fatal accident on the way down, a frisson went through the Western world and Zermatt's reputation as a must stage on any nineteenth century was made. Seiler built on this to eventually own a group of five hotels in the village of which the Mont Cervin is the flagship. It has everything that one would expect of a five star establishment, an indoor-outdoor pool, spa, sauna, tennis courts and of course skiing and skating in the winter. Zermatt is in the southern part of the country and the number of bright, sunny days that make hiking in the region such a glorious experience tends to be greater than in the Engadine. The finest adventure of all is to take the cable car up to the altitude of 12,000 feet and to walk on the Matterhorn glacier. One can attempt an ascent of the mountain of course, but only after having produced the bona fides of an experienced high altitude climber and even then only with a certified local guide, and those don't work cheap.For dining, there is a so-called eat around plan with which one can chose to take a meal in any of the eleven restaurants in the five Seiler hotels. Unfortunately all this comes at a price, in the offseason in summer one can expect to pay over 500 S.F. a day for the smallest double room and the winter prices are out of sight. One may of course choose to stay at one of the other four Seiler hotels (one is half way up the mountain), all of which are at least four stars, and pay perhaps between half and two thirds of that.

Grand Hotel Kronenhof Pontresina Switzerland

If you want to spend a vacation in the Upper Engadine but want to bypass the hustle and bustle as well as the excessively high prices of St Moritz, Pontresina, an hour's walk away, is a good choice. The village, it's true, lives almost entirely off the tourist industry but there are only fifteen hotels in all and, particularly in the off season, one feels very much at peace with nature. The Kronenhof is a standard late nineteenth century palace hotel which has been substantially modernized. There's an indoor pool, a spa and tennis courts. In winter there's a skating rink, adjacent to which there is a substantial pavillion which serves snacks throughout the day and the ski slopes are within easy reach. There is a formal restaurant, in which one is expected to wear a dark suit and tie at dinner, and a more informal Stubli, where the food is actually better. The rooms are of good size, the furnishings, while perfectly adequate, are not quite up to the five star standard which the hotel enjoys. The great thing about Pontresina is the wonderful variety of walks that one can chose. One is soon out of the village, walking amidst the most incredibly beautiful Alpine scenery. The most spectacular trail leads to the massive Bernina Glacier which, if you take elementary precautions such as roping together in a group of at least four persons, wearing cleated boots and carrying an ice axe, you can climb. It's a longish halfday's trek, but a truly exhilarating experience. In the off season a double room at the Kronenhof goes for about 325 S.F. for the night. (I spent part of my honeymoon there more years ago than I care to remember and paid exactly one tenth of that -- o tempora, o mores!)

Suvretta House St Moritz Switzerland

St Moritz over the Christmas Holidays has long been a meeting ground of the super rich. This is where the twin concepts of tasteful vulgarity and understated ostentation were first developed. If one happens to be hit by a car on the crowded streets of thew village one at least has the consolation of knowing that one has been run over by a Lamborghini. The prices at the leading hotels have risen into the stratosphere (the glitterati tend to stay mostly at the Palace). Sour apples perhaps, but it's not for me. However, in the low season (the second half of January in winter and June and September in summer) it's still possible to get some impression of what St Moritz was originally about, namely spending a quiet few days in the midst of a truly stunningly beautiful mountainous countryside while enjoying all the creature comforts. My favourite hotel by far is the Suvretta House. One of the five five star establishments that the village can boast of, it's located well outside of town, surrounded by woods. While the outside has not shaken off the assertive monumentality of pre World War I hotel architecture, on the inside everything reflects luxury and good taste, two qualities that are not always conjoined. Everything conducive to an extended stay is provided, there is a huge indoor pool, a spa, tennis courts, the ski slopes are but a short walk fom the front door, there are well maintained hiking paths leading in all directions. My favorite is the one leading down to the lake in the village and then, through the woods to Pontresina, whence one returns by train, altogether a half day's trek. More serious climbing is also available several twelve thousand foot peaks may be ascended with a day's climb. Indoors a small orchestra plays dance music both at the tea hour and in the evenings. The food in the restaurant is at the high end of grand hotel cookery, somewhere between one and two star Michelin rating. If you're bored here you have only yourself to blame. The downside is that, even in low season half pension (breakfast and dinner) in a decently sized room will cost you around 1,200 Swiss Francs a day for a couple. If this lies within your means (they lost me some time ago) this is one of the most pleasant means of spending a week or two that I can think of.