Exquisite Chalet

Jerry Hulse’s note of Oct. 5 in Travel Tips about the Chalet de France near Eureka turned out to be the biggest understatement I have yet read in his writings of travel hideaways (it was a tip from a reader). Without a doubt it has got to be the greatest event in my life in quite some time. The chalet is at the absolute end of the world, the nearest place to heaven that I have found in all my years of traveling. My one complaint is that we might have been warned that the chalet accepts only one or two couples at a time (in winter). Great for those who can get in but rough for those (like me) unknowing, harried city escapees trying to crash in without the needed four- to eight-week reservation. But once there, all sacrifice seems but a trifle.

The setting is the most spectacular that one can imagine. The gourmet French cooking (yes, dinner is by candlelight) is superb. The ambiance delightful (even in the antique bathtub, where my wife and I shared space with candlelight, Mozart and champagne). Our “humble” abode was an all-wood Bavarian chalet out of a 19th-Century picture book. The chalet’s hosts are the most marvelous people one could hope to meet (they still shine your shoes if you leave them outside your door).

Whether walking the wooded trails or whacking a croquet mallet, tranquillity and the quiet of nature dominated all our moments.

ROBERT W. KEERAN

Redding