April in Vichy

Late March and early April—too early for sunbathing and too late for skiing—are not the best times for a European holiday. You cannot guarantee good weather north of the Atlas mountains. I picked Vichy because I like places out of season; I do not mean by that places at a time when their residents are itching to be away—London in February, Bangkok in July—but places which climatically would be attractive were it not fashionable to be somewhere else—the West Indies in early summer, for example.

The Grand Casino in Vichy does not open until May. The full season is from mid-June to mid-September. But it is in the very middle of France. The weather is as likely to be clement there as anywhere in early April. Moreover I was curious to see what it was like out of season. Three years ago I passed the first two weeks of August there. It was very gay. Vichy has the artificial elegance of La Bells Époque. The ironware covering over the promenade that runs around the ancien pare was constructed by Napoleon III so that the Empress Eugenie should not get wet on her way from the casino to the pumproom. The waters of Vichy are particularly efficacious for disorders of the liver, and maladie de foie is the chief occupational hazard of la haute cuisine. Five separate thermal springs bubble round the park. Each curist, medically recommended a certain series and quantity of waters, dangles from his wrist a small wicker basket containing a glass marked off in grams. There is a smooth atmosphere of parade during the hours before lunch and dinner when the curists saunter or sit under the trees beside the flower beds, sipping the hot salt waters, listening to music.

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Alec Waugh

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Late March and early April—too early for sunbathing and too late for skiing—are not the best times for a European holiday. You cannot guarantee good weather north of the Atlas mountains. I picked Vichy because I like places out of season; I do not mean by that places at a time when their residents are itching to be away—London in February, Bangkok in July—but places which climatically would be attractive were it not fashionable to be somewhere else—the West Indies in early summer, for example.

The Grand Casino in Vichy does not open until May. The full season is from mid-June to mid-September. But it is in the very middle of France. The weather is as likely to be clement there as anywhere in early April. Moreover I was curious to see what it was like out of season. Three years ago I passed the first two weeks of August there. It was very gay. Vichy has the artificial elegance of La Bells Époque. The ironware covering over the promenade that runs around the ancien pare was constructed by Napoleon III so that the Empress Eugenie should not get wet on her way from the casino to the pumproom. The waters of Vichy are particularly efficacious for disorders of the liver, and maladie de foie is the chief occupational hazard of la haute cuisine. Five separate thermal springs bubble round the park. Each curist, medically recommended a certain series and quantity of waters, dangles from his wrist a small wicker basket containing a glass marked off in grams. There is a smooth atmosphere of parade during the hours before lunch and dinner when the curists saunter or sit under the trees beside the flower beds, sipping the hot salt waters, listening to music.