Morning:
10°c
I have long been suspicious of the joys of British holidays. The party leaders' annual posing en famille in damp Cornwall or windswept Wales only hardens my determination to head for the sun. But a Christmas break in Suffolk and panicked reports from fleeced British visitors to Euro-land are changing my mind.
It isn't just the weak pound: "We had three camparis and a sparkling water and it came to ¤32 - that's 30 quid!" breathed one recent visitor to Paris, still shell-shocked. It's also that improvements in British food and hotels over the past 10 years have made the difference in quality a thing of the past.
There was a time when provincial Britain was a culinary wasteland. But a string of boutique hotels I've stayed in recently - the Crown and Castle in Orford, Suffolk or The Rectory in Crudwell, Wiltshire spring to mind - suggest those days may be over. The standard of both food and comfort is excellent; most are pretty child-friendly too.
By contrast France, especially, has fallen behind. I yield to no one in my francophilia but almost every one of the many times I have travelled there in the past couple of years, I've been disappointed by lazy, unimaginative, corner-cutting food. And let's not get started on the non-functioning showers of cheaper French hotels - although we got that plus frayed towels and army-style blankets at a very upmarket gite last year.
Such places used to be acceptable abroad because they were cheap. Now even tat is pricey. And as I sat down to another fabulous meal at the Crown and Castle last week - top-quality, locally sourced ingredients and imaginative menus without cuisine bourgeoise pretensions - it occurred to me that I was probably paying less for it than I would for more uneven quality the other side of the Channel.
England now has my vote for a short break over Paris. You'd better wrap up warm, though.
* My children were aghast at the low number of Christmas presents I received this year (three). But I got off lightly. My wife opened a 1970s-vintage packet of dishcloths from her grandmother; the same matriarch gave my mother-in-law some used surgical gloves (for the garden). And it could have been worse: last birthday my mother-in-law received incontinence pads from her sister, apparently in ironic retaliation for her sibling's kind gift of a she-wee device. Beside those, my Margaret Thatcher novelty nutcracker was a rare prize indeed.
Reader views (1)
Yes, but what does a 'boutique' hotel cost? The ones I've seen are a darned sight more expensive than French hotels. Next time in France try the B and B's in chateaux. Beats the heck out of a high street hotel.
- John Problem, Hackney Wick, London, UK, 06/01/2009 14:39
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