FOR RENT : FARMHOUSES IN FRANCE : Staying in a private cottage in the French countryside is a way to soak up the local atmosphere and avoid the high hotel bills

It can still be done. You and some friends can indulge in Provence--for a week, a month, or more--see the treasured sights, dine memorably in relaxed surroundings and spend your nights in spacious comfort, all at an affordable price.

The secret: Rent a house or an apartment.

It’s not nearly as intimidating as it sounds. The idea came to us last fall when my wife Martha and I, and close friends Kathy and Bob Gillespie, started reminiscing one night about previous travels in Europe, especially some memorable visits to France.

Wouldn’t it be fun to go again? Yes. But with the bite of recession and the dollar plunging against European currencies, wouldn’t it be frighteningly expensive? Yes again. With modest French hotel rooms running close to $175 a night and dinner at ordinary restaurants averaging about $30 a person, a conventional trip was out of the question.

But what if we rented a house together, and prepared our own meals?

“Let’s check it out,” someone said.

Working on the dubious premise that the journalist among us should have the task--rather than a population expert or a couple of capable wives--the group assigned the job to me.

Within a couple of weeks, I had come up with several catalogues listing hundreds of rentals throughout France, ranging in price from about $300 a week for a modest suite of rooms in a village home to more than $4,000 a week for a sumptuous villa with several acres of manicured grounds. Midsummer prices were the highest, roughly double those of the early spring and late fall. The closer you get to August--the month all of Europe goes on vacation--the more you pay.

We decided to deal with a British firm, Vacances en Campagne, largely because their attractive catalogue, while far from detailed, included the best photographs of the rental properties and offered the most information we found useful. The company is represented exclusively in Southern California by a travel agency in Santa Ana called Livingstone Holidays, which did an admirable job of serving as an intermediary between us, England and the people in France.

After considerable anguishing over how much to spend and where to stay, we finally agreed on three choices in Provence, all of them at the more economical end of the scale.

Elizabeth Livingstone faithfully relayed our requests across the sea, and the answers came back in about a week. Number one was out because the owner, an American, hadn’t finished putting in the plumbing. Number two was already booked up.

But number three--described tersely in the catalogue as a three-bedroom house with a “comfortable living room,” situated in a “striking setting” on vineyard property in the hilly Vaucluse region about 30 miles northeast of Avignon--was available. There were two accompanying photographs, one showing the porch of a weathered building and the other a pretty view of a rural hillside.

That was about all we knew, but the off-season price seemed right--$500 a week, to be in large part shared by the four of us.

Warning each other not to expect too much, we signed up for a month, from mid-April to mid-May, mailing in a deposit to hold the place and, several weeks before we left, another check for the remaining balance. Insurance was offered by Vacances en Campagne to cover the rental if we decided to bug out, but we turned that down, hoping for the best.

“I don’t care how bad it is,” said Martha, the only speaker of fluent French and the key to the equation. “It’s in France.”

For some reason, her argument made sense.

*

A map was mailed to us on how to get there, along with the address of M. Bernard, the farmer who had the key, and some information about bed linens and “tea towels.”

With various members of our troupe arriving and departing at different times, Martha and I arranged a month in advance to rent one car from Budget, and the Gillespies signed up for another. Both of them were ugly, slab-sided, noisy little machines--one a Peugeot, the other a Renault, both stick shift--that got close to 40 miles per gallon, hung in there on the autoroutes at 80 m.p.h. and served our purposes adequately, if without distinction. Each was rented at monthly rates of about $1,300, about 20% less than if we had rented them by the week.

Martha and I were the first members of the team to reach France, and as we drove the 450 miles south from Paris, we began to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into. The catalogue had said “Shower room. Separate WC.” We had seen some of France’s grim plumbing before. And what is a “comfortable” living room? Why, we wondered, didn’t they call it “charming” or “spacious”?

A few minutes after we reached Beaumes-de-Venise, the little town where M. Bernard lives, we were following his sputtering little truck 5 miles up the hill to the tiny village of Suzette. We soon learned that, whether through the careful planning of Vacances de Campagne or our own blind luck, our concerns had been misplaced.

Our house--a delightful two-story stone structure, built piecemeal over the past 200 years in a grove of oak trees about a mile from Suzette--sat atop a 50-acre terraced vineyard, overlooking lush wooded glens topped by limestone outcroppings that stretched from the Rhone valley on the west to Mt. Ventoux on the east.

The house included a living room/dining room/kitchen that measured about 15 by 30 feet, a toilet room containing a modern and efficient commode, a separate bathroom with one of those hand-held showers that require considerable dexterity to avoid flooding, and three bedrooms, two with double beds and one with twin beds. Our living area comprised roughly 1,000 square feet in all, all on the second floor. Beneath us were storage rooms and a laundry room with a small washing machine.

The floors, like those in most Provencal farmhouses, were tile throughout; the interior walls either stone, plaster or mismatched wallpaper. The furnishings weren’t stylish, but they were serviceable--massive overstuffed chairs of a peculiarly French farmhouse design, plunked down at random between sturdy wooden tables and cabinets. The beds were a bit lumpy, but quite sleepable.

The kitchen stove and refrigerator were small but efficient--we used less than one 25-liter bottle of propane for the stove in four weeks--and the supply of kitchenware, china, glasses and silverware was more than adequate.

Thirty minutes after our arrival, our clothes were hung in the closets, a local white wine was chilling in the refrigerator, a dinner of sauteed veal and steamed vegetables was on the stove and the make-reservations / worry / pack / travel / worry / check-in/ unpack / make-reservations cycle had effectively been broken.

For the next four weeks, planning pretty much came to a halt. We simply got up each morning and did what we felt like doing. Those who felt like going out, did. Those who didn’t, didn’t.

The changing makeup of our little group made for a variety of interests.

For the first 10 days, Martha and I were on our own.

If it was sunny and warm, which it usually was, we’d typically begin the day by heading down to the substantial market town of Carpentras, about 15 miles away, for a midmorning cup of coffee, a croissant and the daily edition of the English-language International Herald Tribune at a tree-shaded sidewalk cafe.

Thus refreshed, Martha would hit the local Benetton and other boutiques for a bit of window shopping while I’d stop by the local patisserie to pick up a few delights for dinner.

After lunch at the house, and maybe a nap, we’d play tennis at the local public courts (available for a modest fee), visit one of the nearby tourist attractions like the Roman ruins at Vaison-la-Romaine, about 12 miles from the house, or do a little reading on our sun-drenched terrace.

When the Gillespies arrived, the tempo picked up a bit.

*

Bob, a marathon runner, is the kind who gets up at 5 a.m. for a brisk 7-mile walk before breakfast. Kathy liked to stroll from village to village, following either the well-marked trails through the woods or the country roads that snaked along the hillsides.

One of those roads, which passed within a mile of our house, was the Route du Vin, a popular tourist trek leading past dozens of wineries producing the local Cote du Rhone varieties. We made several pilgrimages to these wineries, where splendid vintages were available for as little as $3 a bottle--a little more if you bought one off the shelf, a little less if you brought your own bottle for them to fill from the vat.

Other excursions we enjoyed together were our market-day jaunts to towns like L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, with its inviting sidewalk cafes and maze of tree-lined canalways. These markets attract forests of shaded stalls offering delectable arrays of fruits, vegetables, pastries, meats, cheeses and fish, along with antiques of questionable heritage, discounted heavy metal tapes and T-shirts heralding the Los Angeles Raiders.

For the most part, our evenings were spent together around the big dining room table, playing cards, working on picture puzzles and chatting long into the night.

The Gillespies, who stayed about two weeks, were followed a couple of days later by my son Dan and his wife Linda, the least traveled among us. That meant it was time for sightseeing, and there was a lot to see, all within a half day’s drive.

There were cities like Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Avignon, Orange and Nimes, with their pleasant promenades, intriguing museums, exuberant festivals and architectural marvels that span Western history from the ancient Greeks and Romans through the medieval Popes to the 19th-Century revolutions that brought down French nobility for good.

There were spectacular natural settings like the Gorges de L’Ardeche, France’s stunning answer to our Grand Canyon; the Fontaine de Vaucluse, where 14th-Century poet-scholar Petrarch immortalized the diamond-clear river that boils up from as yet unplumbed depths, and the Gardon valley, where the Romans built their still magnificent aqueduct bridge, the Pont du Gard, more than 1,900 years ago.

There were charming hilltop villages like Gordes, where ancient houses perch in tiers above the quaint stone borie huts of the Imergue valley; Bonnieux, whose peaceful beauty is extolled in nearby resident Peter Mayle’s books about modern rural French life, and Les Baux, where the shattered ruins of a 15th-Century military stronghold stand in stark profile against the sky.

*

Although our house was well out in the country--about a half a mile from the nearest neighbors--public tennis courts and swimming pools, post offices, pay telephones, banks, food shops, doctors, pharmacies, newsstands and seductive little sidewalk cafes were all available within a radius of less than six miles.

A comprehensive, loose-leaf notebook provided with our house had listed them all, along with the dates and locations of local art and music festivals and an opinionated review of the nearby restaurants by tenants who had preceded us.

But part of the secret of our economic success was avoiding most local restaurants, which generally charged between $40 and $125 for a complete dinner for two, including wine and coffee.

Instead, situated as we were in one of France’s great food-producing areas, we shopped at the nearby markets, cooking meals from scratch or assembling them from the wide selection of prepared courses available at the local charcuteries , boulangeries and patisseries. Veal, chicken, sausages and lamb were our main-course favorites. Excellent locally grown vegetables like broccoli and green beans were available every day, and the fruits--especially the delectable strawberries and cherries--became a mainstay at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Bob became such a connoisseur of pates that as many as five varieties could be found in our refrigerator at one time.

And when it came to bakery goods, we became out-and-out snobs. Bread is both superb and inexpensive in France, and we arrogantly tossed out any baguette that was 24 hours old.

Even without skimping, our home-prepared meals reduced the daily food and beverage budget for four of us to somewhere around $35 a day.

In the beginning, Martha--the one who really could speak French--did most of the shopping. But she soon realized that the rest of us were taking advantage of her, and within a few days I found myself the designated shopper, managing quite well with a patois of Franglais and sign language.

The shopkeepers, for the most part, found it an interesting challenge, and never once was I dealt with rudely or made to feel uncomfortable.

We divided most of the chores, with couples alternating between shopping and dinner preparation. The women did most of the cooking at dinner time, the men did most of the dish-washing. The rest of the day, you fed and cleaned up after yourself.

When the weather was cool, we ate dinner inside, enjoying the spacious, candle-lit comfort of our own, private dining room.

When it was warm, we ate out under the trees, watching the sun set over the distant towns where less fortunate tourists were scurrying around, wondering what to do about dinner before bedding down in yet another hotel.

Were we smug?

You bet we were.

GUIDEBOOK

Escaping to Provence

Home rental agencies: Several reputable agencies with outlets in the United States handle the rental of homes and apartments in France. For the best possible selection, contact them six to nine months in advance. Among the agencies often recommended are:

* At Home Abroad, Inc., 405 East 56th St., New York 10022, (212) 421-9165.

* Interhome USA, 124 Little Falls Road, Fairfield, N.J. 07004, (201) 882-6864.

* Vacances en Campagne, which operates exclusively in Southern California through Livingstone Holidays, 1720 S. Garry Ave., Suite 236, Santa Ana 92705, (714) 476-2823.

We utilized Vacances en Campagne, and were more than satisfied with their service. Call or write Livingstone Holidays (send $3 postage and handling) for a 300-page brochure listing Vacances en Campagne properties in France.

Renting a car: A car is a necessity, since most housing rentals are in the country or in small villages where public transportation is minimal. A number of agencies offer car rentals in France, including Avis, Budget, Eurocar and Hertz, all of which offer comparable service. Rates vary depending on the size of the car, but monthly rentals, which must be arranged three to four weeks in advance, start as low as about $1,000 for the smallest models. Cars can be picked up at a wide variety of locations in and around Paris, including all the major railroad stations and airports. If you use the American Express Gold Card, you will save on insurance.

Where to eat: Although we ate out very little while in Suzette, there was one restaurant that we all thought was excellent. It’s Le Bellfroi, the dining room of a charming, 300-year-old hotel, tucked away on a crooked alleyway at the center of the small medieval town of Caromb, about nine miles from our house. It’s impossible to give directions; drive to Caromb and ask someone how to get there.

Where to shop: Beaumes-de-Venise and Malaucene, both about five miles from our house, had small shops that offered all the basic foods. For more variety and better specialty shops, we went a few miles farther, to Carpentras and Vaison-la-Romaine. For the best prices and the most fun, shop the portable markets set up weekly at regional centers such as Vaison-la-Romaine, Carpentras, Apt and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.

Winding roads between towns offer opportunities to sample and buy some of the best fruits, vegetables, wines, honeys and olive oils in the world from the farmers who produce them.