LIFE ON THE REVIERA.

North Otago Times, 22 May 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

LIFE ON THE REVIERA.

I- passed a winter in Nice with two friends in n furnished apartment. It was delightful, and in a" apartment, unlike in n hotel, one's expenses can run high or low, as one pleases. Ours usually came, to forty francs a week per person, though when hard up we often reduced (hem to twenty-five francs.

The apartment was on the eastern extension of the Promenade des Anglais. 11 Jiad gas and water laid on, a hutli, and a gas eook-slove. "1)0 three largest of its six rooms faced to the south, and their windows stood open all day long to sun and sea. The fire of gnarled olive wood that made our sitting-room so cosy in the evening cost, by actual calculation, but three half-pence a "iffhtThe apartment itself, in every respect a charming 'one, cost twelve hundred francs for the season. Our stay Icgan in November and lasted to the end of April, so this rental worked 'out to about fifty francs a week—sixteen francs for each person.

We were more than comfortable. Housekeeping in a small "'«)' i SMSV at Nice, where all the winter long fresh peas, new potalocs, tomatoes, beans, in the way of vegetables, to say nothing of delicious fruit, are to he obtained at the low prices that only prevail at home in the summer time.

We had a good maid, who went home every night to sleep. We paid lier by the' hour—thirty centimes an hour—the customary rate among the Xicois. And. our average weekly expenditure of forty francs per person itemised itself thus : Jiont , 16.G7 Food ' 17. Light and heat, 1.2") Laundry 2.50 Servant 2.50

Total 39.92fr. Nice is emphatically the Uivicra town in which to practice economy without discomfort. For N'ice is so large that one's economical exercises arc not on parade there, as they would be in a smaller Uivicra town. The amusements of Nice, again, may be enjoyed on the same cheap scale as its apartments. The three theatres, iov instance, producing admirably such operas as

'•'\Yiavs." 'tti Tosca," "Ui Vie <!<-• (lolieme," have stalls a( fire irimes, whi'c in the comfortable galleries numbered seats as low as one franc each may be reserved.

What could l:c phasaufer, too, Ilia" a visit now and then to one of the lame and glittering cafes of Nice, with their good orchestras, tlviv longlists of London and Paris newspapers and weeklies, their playing-cards, chessboards, backgammon or draught boards, so rapidly produced on demand ? And all this at the price of a modest "consommation" or two—a mug of the best (ierman beer, a glass of the finest Moka ! Yes, at this price, all round you, sit the wise French folk, writing their letters, playing their games, reading the news.

.Vice offers a singularlv good openair concert in the -lardin I'ublic daily. The band is quite wonderful. It is more like a string orchestra than n band, awl" its repertory cmbraces Beethoven. Hclioz. Wagner, Massenet, Puccini. How delightful it is to sit llnough one of these concerts in Ihe .lardin Public on a "e----cember afternoon.

But suppose one is a very quiet person. a 'over of nature, a worshipjcr of sunshine and snow-peaks rather than of the busy town? Then one can retire to some beautiful old quiet town like Cirnsse, ami there one can live well on a pension for five francs n day. T did it, so 1 know. I bad a little table of my own by a window in the dining-room, the food was both good and plentiful, and in the evening, before the fire in the salon. I improved my German by tailing to a German Graf and my Italian bv singing ducts with a contessa from Napoli.

And think not that to live on the Riviera at seven francs or so a day is to live meanly in discomfort. On the contrary, it is to live, if one be wise, with a certain elegance and pleasant ease.-Fstclle Kla'uder, in the London "Mail."