hear of 5 francs per day being a normal charge. These good old times have not wholly disappeared, for to this day, in some outlying places in Switzerland, pension at a very low rate can be procured. We spent eight days at the Hotel Berthod, Chateau d’Œx, which lies up among the mountains, a long day’s journey from Interlachen, en route for Aigle; and the charge was only 5 francs per day, with 20 centimes for service, besides bougies, which were charged only 30 centimes each. This was upon the second floor, which we preferred, as less noisy, to that below at 6 francs. The charge on the third floor was, I believe, even a shade less. The hotel was a wooden house of large size, and could accommodate at least eighty guests, and in the season was generally full, while the company was so far select, being out of the beaten track of tourists. The accommodation was necessarily somewhat rough, but every attention was paid, as far as practicable, to the comfort of the visitors. Considering that its season lasts for scarcely three months in the year, one would be surprised to think it possible it could pay; but it seems that the landlord’s brother had formerly kept the establishment, and had retired with a competence. Everything, however, with one exception, was cheap at Chateau d’Œx, which boasts of several establishments of the same kind, one of them (though two miles off), ‘Rosinière,’ the largest chalet in Switzerland, and picturesquely situated in a secluded spot, dating back to 1754.
Pension includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedroom, and service, sometimes also lights. Occasionally service is made a separate charge, and is stated at from ½ franc to 1 franc per day, according to place.
In many good hotels in Switzerland and elsewhere, pension can be had at 8 francs per day. At Lugano the charge, I noticed, during summer (1st April to 31st October), is 8 to 11 francs; during winter, 6 francs to 7 francs 50 centimes. Both at Interlachen and Montreux, we paid at the rate of 8 francs, and had excellent quarters in first-class hotels. With other rooms supposed to be better, the charge would have been 10 francs per day. But in the height of the Interlachen season, the hotels will not readily begin to take people en pension. At Chamounix we were told, on a former tour in the month of August, that the hotels there would not take en pension after 15th July. By that time English tourists begin to arrive in great shoals, and often find much difficulty in getting quarters. When this takes place, the applications are either refused, or the visitors are accommodated in dependencies, which are either houses or chalets attached to the hotel, or in some cases simply houses in the villages in which the natives can spare a room, and therefore not always desirable. Pension in Italy and France is charged at a little higher rate than in Switzerland. We found that, upon an average, 10 or 12 francs a day was the charge in these countries; but according to the accommodation, it would either rise above or fall below this rate, varying from 8 to 15 or 16 francs per day. As the charge of 8 francs, which seldom secures any but a north room, covers everything pension includes, there must be a profit out of it, and all above that amount ought to be clear extra gain. Eight francs per day amounts to £116 per annum, 15 francs per day to £219—a good rate of board.
In season places great contrast often exists between the charges for pension during the season and after it is over. Thus at Biarritz, during the winter months, pension might have been had at 7 francs per diem, but during the two months of summer season (August and September, on to 15th October) the charges at the principal hotels are high. For rooms alone the charge may be from 20 to 25 francs on the second floor, and from 12 to 14 francs per day on the third floor, the first floor being much more costly. However, we found at the Hotel de Paris, on 18th September, towards the close of the season, which may have made a difference, fairly comfortable rooms on the first floor, in a good situation, at a moderate rate. Sometimes with first-floor rooms the usual charges for living are made separately or in addition to the charge for rooms.
Fire in the private rooms is always an extra. Nowhere is coal burnt, at least that we have seen, unless in the northern parts of France. The visitor, when he wishes fire, is supplied with a basket of wood, the size and the quality of which vary very much, as do the prices. It consists of logs sawn into pieces about 12 to 18 inches long, and split up, and the kind of wood necessarily varies with the locality. In the olive-growing countries it is olive wood, which burns slowly. At Pau it is the short oak grown in the woods in the vicinity. In other places it is pine wood, which burns rapidly. At Lyons we paid 2 francs for a small pannier of soft wood, which lasted two nights. At Mentone a large pannier of olive wood, probably mixed with pine, cost 2 francs 20 centimes, and lasted much longer. If we had no fire during the day, and we found day fires very rarely necessary in Mentone, a pannier would last us nearly a week for one fire per evening, lit after dinner. At Spezzia, where the wood burnt very fast, the pannier was charged 3·50 francs. At Pisa the charge was 3 francs; and at Rome, had we found it needful, we should have been charged at the hotel, for each room, 5 francs for a pannier which would not have lasted more than two nights. Indeed, at Rome the expense of wood is so serious an extra charge, that I have heard of a gentleman with a large and perhaps extravagant family feeling obliged to curtail his visit on that account.
The wood is laid across two iron dogs, and emits, especially in the case of olive wood, good heat. The ashes of former fires are always left lying between the dogs, and greatly help to keep the fire in. The ashes smoulder away for a long time, and bellows, always hung by the fireside, will bring them to a glow long after they are apparently dead.
The dogs are hardly suitable for coals, but might not a good trade in coals with the Continent be brought about? I suppose the abundance of wood renders it unnecessary. But a great deal may result from the force of habit, or, not improbably, there may be a prohibitory duty preventing the people from using coal.
One very annoying item of extra expense consists in the fees with which servants expect to be tipped at leaving. Many persons refuse to give anything, on the strictly theoretically-correct ground that they have already paid for service in the bills. Such persons, at least if English people, seem to be looked upon as shabby. On the other hand, there are those, principally English, who are very lavish with their largess, and really do their successors much harm, leading the servants to be on the outlook for handsome fees. In Italy the evil is, I think, most felt. In France, however, it is bad enough. If one be but a single night at a hotel, chamber-maid, waiters, concierge, porters, conductors, and even drivers of omnibuses—all expect donations, and stand hovering about (perhaps perform useless little services), that they may not be lost sight of. Nor is the evil less at pensions, where I have had more than once to fee no less than seven attendants, being the whole menial establishment. It becomes a very heavy tax, amounting to no small sum at the end of a long tour, as one does not like to be shabby, or thought so. At pensions and hotels at Christmas time, every servant with whom the visitor has had to do expects his or her five-franc piece at the least; and this really one does not at that festive season so much grudge, if dwelling in the house for the winter, although the feeing process has to be repeated at leaving, and intermediately for any supposed extra services. I must say, however, that the only suggestion of a donation at Christmas came from the portier of our hotel at Mentone, who addressed a lithographed card to each visitor on the 1st of January: ‘Le portier de l’Hotel vous souhait une bonne et heureuse année.’ And no doubt a similar lithographed card was used with effect by all the porters of the place, and made the ignorant or unthinking aware of what they were expected to do.
The only person outside the establishment who suggested a benefaction by the enclosure of a card was the postman, who, no doubt, was cheerfully boxed by every visitor.
I suppose that complaints of this practice of tipping or expecting fees reached the ears of the landlords, who, honest men, no doubt had found their advantage in it; for, in the summer of 1877, nine of the principal hotels in Switzerland announced to the public that, with a view to putting a stop to it, they should thenceforth make a charge which would cover everything, so that visitors should not be annoyed longer in this way. But the system which they did adopt was an erroneous one, and was only calculated to place an additional burden on their guests—in other words, they made an extra charge for their rooms; so that the occupants had to pay nightly, in some cases, perhaps as much as they would have paid once for all as gratuity, while in many cases gratuities would continue to be given. We came upon one of these hotels, the Schweizerhoff in Lucerne. Here, in conformity with the new rule, one charge was made for rooms per night, inclusive of attendance and lights, and a bill was stuck up in the rooms containing