etty
ladies of Aix often call a halt to breakfast, _Ecrevisses Bordelaises_
being a speciality. At one of the little mountain inns, I fancy that of
La Chambotte, the proprietor has married a Scotch wife, and her
excellent cakes, made after the manner of her fatherland, come as a
surprise to the French tourists. The chalets at the summit of the Grand
Revard belong, I believe, to Mme. Ritz, wife of the Emperor of Hotels,
and the feeding there naturally is excellent.

Most people who go a trip to the Lac d'Annecy breakfast on the boat,
though I believe there is a fair breakfast to be obtained at the
Angleterre. On the boat a very ample meal is provided--the trout
generally being excellent--which occupies the attention of the
intelligent voyager during the whole of the time that he is supposed to
be looking at waterfalls, castles, peaks, and picturesque villages.

Vichy

Outside the hotels, the restaurants attached to which give in most cases
a good _table-d'hote_ dinner for six francs and a _dejeuner_ for four,
there are but few restaurants, for most people who come to Vichy live
_en pension_, making a bargain with their hotel for their food for so
much a day, a bargain which does not encourage them to go outside and
take their meals. The Restauration, in the park close to the Casino, is
a restaurant as well as a cafe, and is amusing in the evening. There are
several small restaurants in the environs of Vichy. In the valleys of
the Sichon and the Jolan, two streams which join near the village of
Cusset and then flow into the Allier, are two little restaurants, each
to be reached by a carriage road. Both the Restaurant les Malavaux near
the ruins, and the Restaurant de l'Ardoisiere near the Cascade of
Gourre-Saillant, have their dishes, each of them making a speciality of
trout and crayfish from the little river that flows hard by. At the
Montagne Verte, whence a fine view of the valley of the Allier is
obtainable, and at one or two other of the places to which walks and
drives are taken, there are cafes and inns where decent food is
obtainable.

Various

Men who know shake their heads when you ask them whether there is good
food obtainable outside the hotels at Royat and La Bourboule, but I have
a pleasant memory of an excellent dinner with good bourgeois cookery at
Hugon's in the Rue Royale of the neighbouring town of Clermont-Ferrand.
At Contrexeville I am told that the wise man finding his food good in
his ho