lawns, lawn-tennis courts, and polo grounds; we will have rides
through the forest and bathing facilities on this shore, and we will
advertise until the whole world knows that we have made this place."
And, having spoken, everything desired straightway comes to pass, so
that one reads on a leaflet concerning this newly arrived resort such
items as these:--
10 hotels. 2 golf-courses.
2 casinos. 3 croquet lawns.
2 theatres. 17 lawn-tennis courts.
10 miles of forest rides. 3 miles of sandy beach.
A polo ground. Drag-hounds.
Paris Plage is the newly-built town, brought into existence through
the needs and attractions of Le Touquet, Etaples being a little too
far away to answer this purpose.
Farther north is Boulogne, with its own casino and promenade and its
village resorts, such as Hardelot, close at hand. So numerous, indeed,
are the bathing-places of this type that it would be tiresome to even
attempt a list of them all, but they all have their own
devotees--French, English, and American--and any little villa along
the coast of Normandy or Picardy may during the hot months be the
temporary home of men and women whose names are household words on
either side of the Channel.
Brittany is farther away from Paris and from England, and its charms
are only beginning to be appreciated. With the exception of Dinard,
there is no place that is expensive or smart in any sense. Some of the
villages on the long and deeply indented coast-line have at least one
good hotel, and if one is content with what the sea will provide in
the way of amusement, the happiest of holidays may be spent there.
Bathing, sailing, fishing, sketching, walking, exploring quaint
villages, and seeing the curious social customs that still live in
this very Celtic corner of France, fill up endless days, and only
those to whom none of these things appeal can be dull, provided the
weather is tolerably fine.
Biarritz, down at the southern extremity of the French Atlantic coast,
in the innermost corner of the Bay of Biscay, with its neighbour St.
Jean de Luz, are far away from the two great groups of coast resorts.
The first was popularised among both French and English on account of
the frequent visits paid to it by King Edward VII. It was understood
when _Le Roi Edouard_ came to Biarritz that no one was to take any
notice whatsoever of his presence. Cameras were promptly confiscated
if any one attempted to snapshot the King or any of his friends, and
it was in this way possible for the sovereign who loved to step down
into the crowd, to forget the tedious functions of his office. After
Sunday morning service he would stroll along the promenade with one or
two friends in the most informal fashion, so that a chance British
visitor who did not dream that he might at any moment rub shoulders
with his sovereign would almost gasp with astonishment when he
suddenly discovered that he had actually done so!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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