Rentals-France Newsletter August 2 1999. Number 1.

Contents: Village houses in the South of France, mind your step. Photography tips, digital cameras. The French telephone system, (and charges!!!) Vin Nouveau and Fruitcake
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Village Houses:

I suppose because we live here we get used to the local scenery and architecture. We sometimes forget that the houses we rent are so very different from the homes in other countries. Most of the properties here are at least 200 years old. Our home has been lived in constantly for over 1000 years and probably since the Greeks came here before the Roman empire was even thought of.

The people who lived here were farmers, the winters can be chilly and the summers are always hot, wild animals roamed the fields and invaders from Africa and Vikings from Scandinavia looted the region. So the houses were built to keep cool in summer, dry and warm in winter, the animals, sheep, goats and oxen could live on the ground floor for protection at night and the houses were clustered together with massive stone walls on the outer houses for defense. To keep cool, the sun was shut out by keeping the streets narrow and having thick wooden shutters on the windows (no glass).

For two thousand years there has been very little change in the design and construction of these village houses (the windows do have glass in now). Not until the 1930's were new construction techniques widely used, stone walls from 3 ft to 10 thick were still used as a standard construction method.

Houses in villages were shared by families and marriages often linked families into large groups over four, often five, generations (people live a long time in this climate and with the Mediterranean diet). Doorways were constantly being added or bricked up between the terraced homes which were linked together in very convoluted ways to change the space available.

As most families were closely related by marriage and by work, the villages often resembled (and still resemble) one complex building rather than a lot of separate homes.

Having animals, wine making machinery and storage downstairs and having all the houses close together for shade and defense meant the houses go upwards.

Typically a village house is on four or five floors originally to have animals at the bottom and hay and corn on the top under the roof. The houses did not have gardens, these were not needed as food was grown in communal allotments. Villages were built around wells and water sources. Here there are wonderful fresh water springs in many villages, the water comes from the center of France through fissures and underground rivers along the line of volcanic activity of 55 million years ago.

All this grouping together and building upwards means of course there are a lot of steep stairs in a typical village house.

Today most French families still live on the upper floors, the kitchens and living rooms are up the first staircase and bedrooms up the second and third staircases. The sheep and oxen are replaced by Citroens and Peugeots. The hay loft is now often a super terrace where you can relax in the Mediterranean sunshine.

But the steep steps are still there, so when you come expect some good exercise. Plus, if you have young children who are not used to stairs, we can supply safety gates for you although many of these stairs have doors top and bottom, people have been living here with their kids for centuries.

If stairs are a problem for you, be sure to ask us and we can recommend properties which are more suitable.

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Photography.

The light in the South of France is wonderful, photographers talk about the 'quality' of light. By this they mean it's color. You can measure the color of light and this is expressed in terms of the ' color temperature'

.I won't go into technical details, it is pretty boring really, but in very simple terms cool (chilly type of cool not hip type of cool) light is redder and warm light is bluer (color not mood or jazz). This is most important if you make film, Kodak and Agfa etc make their color films to work accurately as possible at a very specific color temperature. Regions with clear sky and no pollution, like the Midi and Provence have a high color temperature, so does the North Pole (in summer).

So what has this got to do with my vacation photos you ask? Well nothing really, I just thought you might like to know. Your camera and film plus the clever computers in the processing labs usually sort it out for you so that your photos look acceptable, but you might have a surprise if you took the same portrait at 8.00 am and at noon and then again at 8.00 pm To get the 'correct' color for the persons face you would need filters and a color temperature meter (very expensive).

Digital cameras. With the developments in digital camera technology, you can buy a camera capable of giving the highest picture quality up to the size of a sheet of typing paper for around $800. This is now about the same price as for a conventional film camera of a similar quality. You save on processing and printing costs and the computer editing is quick and easy. If you print from you computer, the cost of the paper and ink is about the same as buying prints from a lab, but you are in control.

I would recommend that you have spare rechargeable batteries as these get eaten up quickly, but the big advantage of seeing your work instantly, checking the picture, being safe from x-rays, not lugging heat sensitive film around and being able to e-mail your photos straight home seems a big set of pluses. You can select and buy digital cameras from our site through Outpost.com. Please do as this earns us a commission (not much) and we give the affiliate commissions we earn to charity.

Details of companies you can buy from (we plan to increase these as we find good companies) are on our site at

http://www.goto-france.com/store/

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The French Telephone System. (Part 1)

It is very efficient, and very expensive. We pay for everything including every local call at up to $1 for every two minutes (local with a card or mobile). We always ask the owners of rental properties to provide a phone, but, not unreasonably, they usually bar outgoing calls. You can still use the phone by buying a special phone card which cost 50 francs or 100 francs from any Tabac or Presse. These cards have a unique number on which you reveal by ' scratching' the surface (like a lotto card) and you can then use ANY phone, as long as it is a digital phone, to make a call and the central computer simply debits your account. If you are using a laptop PC to access e-mail you can add the secret code number onto your dial up networking number and log on, don't forget to slow down the connection numbers by using comma's. Any problems, e-mail or call me.

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Vin Nouveau

August is the month where the farmers want sun, this year has had a lot of sunshine, some places not enough rain, so the harvest in September may be lower in volume, but high quality. Soon after the harvest come the new wine and the wine festivals. Every village has a celebration of the vin nouveau, music dancing, lots of food, shellfish, cheeses, exhibitions, more music more dancing and more food and, of course, wine. This is usually free and the only price you have to pay is to listen to all the local mayors and the local politicians and the local wine makers and the local traffic warden and the local baker etc make a speech. As the speeches come to an end, you see the more experienced locals move quietly to the tables which are groaning with wine and food and very cleverly 'adjust' the position of the bottles of the better wines to within their reach.

Then comes the tasting, not a genteel splash in the bottom of a glass, but full measure and plenty of refills, often 10 gallon barrels are left everywhere for you to help yourself, the vin nouveau only lasts a few weeks (because we drink it all) so you have to be here to experience it.