French farmhouse breakfasts: Where Sawday’s began

Many moons ago, a relatively young and perennially eager Alastair Sawday set up a company called Alastair Sawday Tours. He enthusiastically guided affluent Americans on walking and cycling tours through rural France – Americans who, while they were entranced by the delicious countryside and gorgeous food, had no intention of slumming it come nightfall. So smart hotels were found for them, and they were happy. But Alastair, steeped in public school parsimony, preferred to leave them in their finery and sneak off to find what he thought of as the real deal – an authentic B&B with real French owners where he could dazzle Monsieur and Madame with his fluent French while they prepared him a supper of whatever was freshest at the market that day. What Alastair really adored was the intimate contact, the feeling of being steeped in La France Profonde. 

After some years of making delightful discoveries all through the countryside, Alastair realised he had a very useful little black book listing some really enticing French B&Bs – thus far unknown to the UK travellers he knew would love them. Publish he would, in spite of advice not to, and voila! Alastair Sawday Publishing was born and so was our first book, French Bed & Breakfast. The dire warnings from all and sundry were unfounded, the book sold out very quickly and we re-published many times. He then branched out into Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, each Special Place being visited by us, or one of our trusted inspectors. Alastair had hit upon a winning formula and UK guests were flocking to discover the delights of staying in people’s homes, the amazing local insights they gleaned, the fabulous food they ate and the wonderful, enlightened conversations around the breakfast tables.  

The inspections were, and still are, very informal occasions, mainly devoted to chatting (and a lot of cake). It’s in the chatting that you find out what you can’t from photos – are the owners generous spirited? Do they love people? You could have a wonderful place to stay with all the ‘facilities’ and ‘amenities’ (both banned words at Sawday’s) you could shake a stick at, but if the people were cold and unfriendly, we couldn’t possibly invite them into our collection. The question each inspector is asking themselves is ‘Who would love to stay here?’  Staying away from home has to be all about the people, and even in a self-catering space owners’ can show their care and love for their guests in many, usually very open-hearted, ways – a hamper brimming with local goodies, enough comfy seating for all, useful guides to walks, pubs that will accept your children or dog, where to go for that special celebratory meal. You should leave each place (luxurious or humble, remote or in a city) feeling cared for and that you’ve learned something about the area you’ve been staying in. 

Times have changed, we’ve moved on to showcase our Special Places via our website rather than through books. But we still inspect each application which we think Sawday’s guests would love. Rarely, in places where we have a dearth of inspectors or are very remote, we visit virtually, but what we glean is the same. Is this place somewhere that Sawday’s guests would love, and why. We’ve learned much about Sawday’s guests in over thirty years, mainly that they’re a loyal bunch who return time and time again to our recommendations. They trust us to have visited a place, to write honestly about it and to tell them who would love it there – more importantly, and unlike every other travel site, we’re honest enough to say who wouldn’t fit in there either. Websites and photos can tell you a lot, but not everything – both can be deceptive, both can leave out things some owners would rather you didn’t know about, and sometimes they omit the joyful, personal stuff we unearth on our visits. Like the trombone playing owner (who didn’t think it worth mentioning) or the fact that somebody’s elaborate cakes are award winning, somebody’s homemade gin absolutely lethal, a yoga teacher who can give guests tuition, a potter or painter with their studio nearby – all things left out of their websites, and all the things that really matter. That is why Alastair went to those first B&Bs and that is why we’ll never stop digging for the gold we (almost) always find.

 

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