Morphing from hotel guests to tenants on the Côte d'Azur by Susan R. Lyons Websites for your vacation rental Two useful sites are www.holiday-rentals.co.uk featuring mostly British-owned properties, and www.cyberrentals.com. With both you deal directly with the owners. Prices run from around $1,000 a week, depending on the season and location, for a comfortable two- or three-bedroom apartment with modern appliances and linens. Two examples of properties found:
-A three-bedroom apartment of just over 900 square feet, with the use of a communal pool, in La Garde Freinet (nearest beach 9 miles away) can be rented for $ 1,317 per week in July and August.
-A one-bed 300-square-foot ground floor flat with pool use in St. Tropez, five minutes' walk from Tahiti Beach, for $1,029 per week in June. |
As the euro edges higher, my husband and I refuse to turn our American backs on the French towns along the Mediterranean. Skyrocketing hotel rates began giving us pause a few years ago as we thought of returning to the Pampellone beaches of St. Tropez, Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo. Thanks to the Internet, however, we have morphed from hotel guests on the Côte d'Azur to tenants, happily indulging our passion for this part of the world at far less cost.
Awakening to the local church bell One year we rented a two-story stone house just off the town square in La Garde Freinet, a hill town in the Var, where we awoke to the tolling of the local church bell and the gurgling of a fountain where Napoleon is said to have refreshed himself. Pampellone is a 25-minute drive through hillside forest and seaside vineyards. We have also relished the convenience of apartments in Antibes, 20 minutes west of Nice. In the café across from Place du Général de Gaulle, we enjoyed a morning café-croissant, and read the local edition of Nice-Matin before collecting our bathing suits and heading for the beach. Antibes' daily market in the nearby old town is a riot of color, with the local sausage and salamis, herbs, jams, olives, and tapenades (olive pastes), and the Picasso Museum and garden, where the master worked and lived for several years, is another treasure to visit. Convenient trains and buses make renting a car here unnecessary. |
