Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 3, 1993 TAG: 9301030195
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: ST.-JEAN PIED-DE-PORT, FRANCE LENGTH: Long
TASTE THE COUNTRY LIFE IN FRANCE
A large private cottage with ample room for three adults, two children and a fat, spotted dog named Freckles. Clean and fully furnished, perched high in the foothills of the Pyrenees Atlantiques, overlooking the white-water river valleys of French Basque country.An attached tennis court and high-walled fronton for players of pelote, the Basque national sport and cousin to jai alai. Fully equipped kitchen, television set and stack of wood for the fireplace. Cattle guard to keep out the cows, goats and sheep that amble along the rocky road in front of the cottage, announcing themselves by the clinking of bells tied around their necks with rope. Pyrenees eagles soaring in the dramatic, turquoise-blue sky. Sweet regional Jurancon wines, first liquid to touch the lips of the French king Henry IV at his birth in 1553. Splendid restaurants featuring river trout and wild salmon on riverside terraces in the ancient pilgrimage town of St.-Jean Pied-de-Port.
Twenty minutes by car from the Spanish border, on the road through the Plain of Aragon that leads to the famous bullfight town of Pamplona. An hour's drive to the Cotes Basques beach resort towns of Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz. Accessible from Paris by a 3 1/2-hour, high-speed train to Bayonne in far southwest France, and a 1 1/2-hour drive in a car rented at the Bayonne train station.
Nice deal at any price, right? Try $275 for the whole week, which is what we paid during our stay in this French farmhouse last June (it goes for $350 during the high season, July and August). At that price, there's money left over for a bottle of good local Irouleguy red wine and a spectacular meal at the Les Pyrenees Hotel, the Michelin two-star restaurant in St.-Jean.
Prefer the Normandy region? How about a two-story cottage on a working dairy farm? Fresh raw milk every morn and eve. Chance for the kids to learn that milk comes from something other than containers. Stone fireplace. OK, so the beds were deep-valley and the shower was unpredictable. We paid $200 weekly in high season.
Something a little more upscale? Try a 19th century chateau with its own lake and 10 acres of wooded land in Beaujolais wine country. Three double rooms, two bathrooms, terrace, fireplace, etc. Telephone, washing machine and television. Off-season: $400 weekly. High season: $500.
All three of the above (the last of which we didn't test ourselves), and approximately 38,000 other rural cottages, are part of the remarkable and little-exploited (by Americans, at least) French vacation "gite" system. Since they were introduced in 1954 by a creative French legislator as a way of providing alternative sources of income in rural areas, gites have become an important source of vacation housing for French and other European travelers.
To belong to the gite (pronounced ZHEET) system, the cottages must meet French government standards of sanitation and amenities. Nearly all, for example, have a fireplace. Kitchen utensils, silverware, plates, cups and glasses are always provided. Linen usually is not. Some of the gites are as modest as a hermit's cabin. Others are truly luxurious.
The reason they are so inexpensive is that they are subsidized in part by the French government. For example, when Madame Jeanne Ourtiague-Paris decided to convert an old sheep barn on her family property in the hills above St.-Jean Pied-de-Port into a gite, she received a grant worth several thousand dollars from the Ministry of Agriculture. The government, in exchange for certain quality and inspection standards, finances up to one-third the cost of each gite. According to government statistics, the average weekly price for five people in a gite is about $240 U.S. It doesn't take a math wizard to calculate the rates: about $7 per night, per person.
The house is small, but not at all uncomfortable. Downstairs, a glass-fronted fireplace takes up one corner. A long, wide oak table, easily seating 10 and bringing to mind the large farm families of another era, runs nearly the length of the room. A cupboard nearby reveals heavy crockery plates, coffee bowls, assorted mismatched serving pieces.
We need toilet paper and dishwashing liquid. The kitchen, separated from the dining area by a half wall, is well-equipped with a large variety of cheap aluminum cookware and glass casseroles, an electric coffee grinder, a toaster, a broiler, a coffee maker, a four-burner gas stove, a tiny refrigerator and not quite enough electrical outlets.
Le Fronton, three other cottages and three bed and breakfast guest rooms are filled about six months a year and give owner Mme. Ourtiague-Paris, a widow who once lived in San Francisco, enough income to hang on to the family's 12 acres.
"If it were not for the gites," she said in Basque-accented French (she speaks rudimentary English) in the kitchen of her own home, "most of the old buildings on our land would be in ruins. It has allowed me to live honestly in my homeland."
The same kind of story - "Rural Exodus Halted: Small Farmers Stay on Land Thanks to French Government Program" - is repeated in hundreds of localities across France. But while the gite system is well-known in Western Europe - 30 percent of the estimated 3 million families who use the system annually are non-French - very few Americans know about it or use it.
This is partly because the French government, quick to appreciate a good idea but incompetent at marketing it, has made little attempt to promote the gite system across the Atlantic.
In addition to exorbitant car rental costs, the main drawback for Americans is the awkward gite selection process. There are certainly gites for every taste and price range. Matching up with them, however, is a different matter.
But traveling during off-season (times other than the July-August peak period and school vacation periods), chances are very good that a traveler can find a gite in a few days' time simply by visiting the office in Paris. Bookings can be made either through the Gites de France office or by contacting the gite operator directly. The local tourist agency usually lists all gites in its area. Basic knowledge of French is helpful. Areas that deal more often with British travelers, such as Brittany, Normandy and Perigord, have a higher percentage of gite operators who speak English.