I spent four nights of my honeymoon, many years ago, in Paris. The dingy hotel room, up a narrow staircase, had a squashed, lumpy bed and a tiny bathroom, from which, if you stood on the lavatory and craned your neck, you could just see the top of one of the towers of Notre Dame through the skylight. Breakfast was dried-out baguettes from the previous day, curled up ham and tea with no milk. We walked around the Louvre the one day, amazed at how small the Mona Lisa was. We hired bicycles the next day to hurtle through the Jardin des Tuileries, visit the Arc de Triomphe and climb the Eiffel Tower. Our legs hurt and my wife fell off her bicycle. On the last day, rejecting the idea of a visit to the zoo because of the paltry number of animals - 180 species including mammals, birds, reptiles and fish - we visited the Bois de Boulogne instead. We were assaulted by careening, food-coated children. It rained. The gastronomic festival on the banks of the Seine was washed out after the larks’ gizzards became soggy and we dined instead in pavement cafés where, to keep the price down, we tried to stick to the Carte du Jour and a pichet of house wine.
Repricing those four nights and all the activities today: R11 900 per person.
NOW ... for the same price, you could spend a full seven nights in a lump-free superking-sized bed in Sycamore, Rissington’s spectacular honeymoon suite, with a view of God’s Window that even God would appreciate. You would shower outside in the sunshine, watched only by bounteous numbers of birds in full cacophony and the odd passing monkey or duiker. Your room would be vast, air-conditioned, light and airy.
Breakfast would include piles of fresh fruit, a full fry-up and home-made scones. Not a manky baguette in sight. The coffee and tea are locally grown and a genuine South African cow would provide fresh milk. The French don''t understand breakfast, but Rissington does.
You could pass a gloriously sunny day exploring the Great Escarpment, not on a bicycle but in an air-conditioned minibus, stopping off at numerous viewpoints over the Blyde River Canyon, the third largest canyon in the world, in the company of guide, wit and raconteur Cliff Warren, a Lowveld stalwart, who would regale you with local history, geological facts and natural wonders from an altitude far higher than the Eiffel Tower or a loo-view of Notre Dame.
On another day, maybe you should go for a massage, in a spa on the banks of the tree-dappled Sabie River to ease away the non-existent pain from the non-cycling. In fact you couldn''t be further from the din of the grimy Seine with its bateaux mouches and the traffic noise from all those Parisian mopeds.
You could take a morning in the Kruger National Park, which we all know is the size of Wales (and therefore a lot bigger than Paris Zoo) and which is also home to 517 species of bird alone, not to mention 174 mammal species and a terrifying array of reptiles, some of which can even be eaten at Rissington. Your experienced guide will provide a fascinating commentary on the sights and sounds of the bush, the scats, the spoor and the calls of the birds and the beasts. You will probably see The Big Five – lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino - and numerous other fascinating species besides. Hyena, maybe. Wild dog ...
Mercifully, there are no elephants in the zoo at Paris, but you can meet them at Elephant Whispers, in Hazyview, where, when these magnificent pachyderms are not being presented for the education of visitors on the importance of treating wild animals with respect, they can wander freely in the bush, just as they should.
A bush walk on the Matumi Trail, where the air teems with hundreds of butterflies. Here, local naturalist Lood Wentzel will give you an even greater insight into the animal, bird and plant life of the region. You might even see the rare Narina Trogon, its bright green and red plumage clearly visible on a low branch of a matumi tree overlooking the clear trickling stream.
After coffee (which will cost you a fifth of what it would set you back on the Champs Elysées) at the Roastery on the river''s edge, the next morning, you could jump into a vehicle and head for the top of the Skyway Trail, a series of nine pulley-rides (or foefie slides, as we call them in South Africa) between platforms in the giant trees before heading for Induna Adventures for white water rafting on the Sabie River, where hippos and crocs abound.
In fact, if you had the time, you could add in a quad bike trail, go paintballing and then tubing, followed by abseiling down massive granite boulder with views of the Kruger National Park and your week would still come in at less than the cost of four nights in Paris.
The sunshine, of course, is free, so, when you are not charging around the countryside, you could loll by Rissington’s pool, wander around the brightly-flowered gardens and clock up some of the 200 bird species or take a short drive to any number of coffee bars, curio shops and galleries with lots of really big pictures showing genuinely smiling people and reflecting the wonderful South African hospitality.
And every evening, there would be dinner under the stars, chosen from Rissington’s extensive menu, brimming with local fare. Springbok Carpaccio, maybe? A sliver of Rissington’s signature Smoked Trout Cheesecake? Crocodile Curry? The tenderest fillet of beef you have ever eaten? After all who on earth would want to eat a lark’s gizzard?
Wash it all down with a bottle of fine South African Shiraz for the price of a glass of French plonk in the French capital and you have a meal as good as any you would find in Paris. And the French can’t make Shiraz anyway.
All for under R12 000 or £520. That is €700.
I know where I would rather be. Look after the pounds and the Rands will certainly look after themselves!