Your Worst French Hotel

[Gardian]

Whether you now live here or are simply a regular visitor to France, there will always be that ghastly place that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Mrs G and I found ourselves fondly (!!) reminiscing about one particular establishment yesterday and I thought that it might generate some amusing tales. Oh, and before the Mods get a bad touch of the vapours, no names or even serious clues as to the location.

This particular place was a final stop after a week at a brilliant place - sadly they couldn't let us stay on, so it was a case of scratching around for something for four nights or so before driving back up to Calais.  I found somewhere that was a halfday drive in the right direction and yes, they could let us have a room. It was mid-August: I should have known better.

When we arrived it seemed like a really nice place: a terrace for evening dining, pleasant reception area, friendly patron. Our room was on the 2nd floor, up a really steep staircase, but the problem wasn't so much that the room was tiny but that it faced directly towards the sun for most of the day. On arrival at 16.00, it was like a sauna. Still, never mind, we're only going to sleep in here: it can't be a big problem.  The bathroom was iffy though: let's just say that any form of manoeuvre was well nigh impossible and the masher-type loo ensured that no middle-of-the-night visit went unheard by anybody else within any form of proximity.

I thought that a late afternoon swim might be nice and we went down to found out where it was. "The other side of the road" was the reply.  Fine: so over the busy road we go, only to find the most disgusting hell-hole that you could imagine. People on here (me included) fret about their pools and the arrival of the dreaded algae. I reckon that this place was trying to cultivate a new strain of pennicilin.  We skipped the swim.

Ah, well there's always dinner: a pleasant evening on the still sunny terrace. Events were presided over by Mme la Patronne, who was a sort-of Cruella de Ville look-alike. Whatever the opposite of charisma is, she had it. "This is the menu tonight", which she reeled off at high speed and with a disinclination to repeat any element of it. Nothing printed, just a verbal no-choice-of-any-course offering.  Now that can be fine in a high quality establishment, but this place wasn't high quality. The meal was edible, but totally unmemorable.

For no other reason than that we couldn't find anywhere else and quite liked the area, we endured one more night (but not dinner!) at Fawlty Towers and then checked out. We'll never forget it.         

[YCCMB]

Haven't really stayed in hotels in France other than on business trips, but there was one memorable occasion...

Had to be in Paris for something, and there was a Salon de Something-or-other which meant that most hotels within a 20-mile radius were full, so ended up in some chain or other (perhaps it's as well that I don't remember which one). My itinerary involved me having to stay there for one night, go elsewhere for a few more nights, and then return to this hotel for one final evening. It was sandwiched between the periph and a cemetery. Nice.

The first visit was OK, except that they insisted upon me paying in full for my room upon arrival, which I found unusual. No doubt they were the sort of establishment where many previous clients had done a moonlight, or really didn't need the room for the entire night, [:$]I don't know.

Two nights later, I returned. My (male) colleague, who had driven me to the hotel, came in with me to ensure all was well before leaving me. I checked in, paid - as before - and went to my room. Something was bothering me, so I checked my receipt from the first visit and discovered they'd charged me considerably more for the current stay. I went back down to reception, where the person who'd checked me in informed me, quite unapologetically, that as he'd seen me arriving with a man, he'd charged me the rate for double occupancy! Do I look like that kind of girl????

Things could only get worse, and they did. I went down to the restaurant for dinner, and had an OK meal. Not long before I'd finished eating, I noticed a man at another table was staring at me. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but given that this hotel appeared to attract a less-than-salubrious clientele, I started to feel a bit edgy. No problem, as he left the restaurant before me. I finished eating, proffered my credit card in payment, and left to go to my room.

Now, that evening, as fate would have it, (let's face it, MOST evenings at a certain time of year are thus afflicted) there was a football match. The hotel did not offer TV in all rooms, so a group of men had gathered around the TV in reception to watch. At the back of this group stood the bloke from the resto. I walked past and took the lift to my floor. He was staring at me as I entered the lift and the doors closed. My room was located at the end of a very long corridor, and I left the lift and headed for my bed. As I approached my door, I heard the other lift door open, and the man from reception exited the lift, turned towards me and just sort of ...looked...

Feeling a tiny bit spooked, but not unduly worried, I entered my room and locked the door. And thought no more about it, until, only a few moments later, my phone rang. The room phone (as this was long before mobiles). Now, I was in Paris, alone. It was around 10 pm. I was not expecting a phone call. Only a couple of people even knew my whereabouts. So, I did the logical thing. I didn't answer it. It rang again, several times. I didn't answer it, several times. Then there was a knock on my door. I didn't answer that, either. I looked through the spy hole but there appeared to be no-one there..

By now, the red mist had descended and I was getting very angry. So I picked up the phone myself and phoned reception. I explained that someone had been repeatedly phoning my room for the last hour, and that someone was also now knocking on my door.

"Oh" said the reception person "that was us".

"Indeed?" I said "And why have you been calling my room every ten minutes for the best part of an hour?"

"Well, your credit card didn't go through properly when you paid for your dinner in the restaurant"

"And this couldn't wait till I checked out in the morning?" I asked "After all, it's now well after 11 pm, and I have been trying to sleep"

"Ah, non, madame...the rules of the hotel stipulate that all bills must be settled immediately, the same day, as they are incurred"

"So, you are suggesting that I should now get dressed, leave my room and come down to reception, for the sole purpose of allowing you to re-swipe my credit card, when you already have its details?"

"Yes, madame"

"Forget it, Monsieur. I'll see you in the morning"

I don't know whether I subconsciously did it on purpose, or not...but the following morning, as we were halfway to our next appointment, I realised that I'd forgotten to hand in my room key. Under normal circs, I would have posted it back, but I just disposed of it.

[idun]

We were going to meet friends at Les Carroz and couldn't get an hotel for the Saturday evening at Les Carroz, so we drove to Cluses and stayed there. The only place we could find was an hotel with it's rooms above a bar. The room was dirty, the sheets mended and patched, and they were clean, floor dirty. Horrible. We didn't eat there. And there was noise from the bar most of the night.

[Pommier]

We were staying in a hotel/bar waiting to sign the Compromis on the first house we bought in France. The room didn't have an ensuite, but it did have a flimsy plastic shower cubicle at the bottom of the bed. This was so small that if you dropped the soap you had to switch off the shower and step out to retreive it. The toilet was at the other end of the corridor. Every morning we could hear the proprietor coughing his lungs up in the back yard which our room overlooked. I think we were the only guests so I don't know why we hadn't been put in a room at the front. A few years later the owner got into an arguement with the Mairie of a nearby village, pulled out a gun and killed him. The hotel has sat empty ever since.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Gardian"]

Events were presided over by Mme la Patronne, who was a sort-of Cruella de Ville look-alike. Whatever the opposite of charisma is, she had it. "This is the menu tonight", which she reeled off at high speed and with a disinclination to repeat any element of it. Nothing printed, just a verbal no-choice-of-any-course offering.           

[/quote]

Forgot to mention that there were doll-like 'witches' hanging in the trees around the terrace. Very, very strange & spooky.  We reckoned that the chefs had hung them up there as a tribute to Cruella.

[suein56]

Staying in Trouville, and having to watch the francs/centimes, my husband and I found a hotel with an available room for 2 nights ... and the room, though small, was great. At the top of the hotel, seemingly not-too-long-ago-converted, in the loft and with its own, tiny, ensuite shower room. In-hotel resto was fine too. So far so good. Then at breakfast next morning Madame approached and said that there had been an error and our room was already booked for our second night, so we would have to change rooms. OK, we agreed, without viewing the room, which was a big mistake. The new room's decor/bed/furniture were as ancient as the hills and the 'nearby' non-ensuite bathroom/loo were quite a walk away. Still it was only for one night.

Next morning, at breakfast, Madame gave us our bill. The charge for the second room was way more than for the first night. When I queried the amount Madame replied that we had had 2 baths and she had charged us for each. When I protested that we had shared one bath and one alone her face did not manage to conceal her distaste. Muttering that it was not normal behaviour she reluctantly struck off the cost of one bath but the bill for the second night was still more than for the first.

It was only later, when packing, that the thought came to me - how did she know we had had a bath and not simply got washed in the bathroom basin? Was she watching/listening out? The first floor bathroom was not visible from her eerie downstairs and there were quite a lot of guests staying. Hopefully she just assumed we would bathe as otherwise she had been spying on us.

Sue

[Gardengirl]

Nothing like some of these horror stories, but a few odd ones stand out.

There was the hotel I stayed at while on a 3 month course in Paris when I was young. My then boyfriend had flown over for the weekend and proposed, so I got a fiancé as well as improved French; flee bites ensued during the night! It was decidedly unfunny, embarrassing and unpleasant, but it didn't put him off - we'll celebrate our 45th wedding next month.

Then there was the B&B at Norwich; pleasant, nice people running it, and very close to MIL's sheltered accommodation, who we had gone over to support when her other son and family went on holiday. There was absolutely no storage space; the owners' daughter's belongings were in every cupboard and drawer, from clothes hanging in the wardrobe, to drawers full of undies and others crammed full of her make-up. The daughter was away at university, and her room, although clean, wasn't suitable for paying guests. I went to ask for another room, and was told just to take any belongings out that we wanted , and to put them somewhere. I really felt like moving out, but it was evening by then, having been to visit MIL on arrival. So we moved some drawer contents into others, wiping out the couple we used, and moving hanging clothes around - we needed clothes etc for a week, so didn't want to leave everything in our bags. So there we were cleaning out drawers and lining them with M&S carrier bags.when we were ready to pop to the pub for a quick meal, doing their work!

Another B&B in the Yorkshire Dales left us with mixed memories; it was lovely, had beautiful views, with very kind, hospitable, elderly owners, lovely breakfasts and a also supper provided free each evening at about 9pm, which they insisted on us sharing - big home-made cakes, scones and pies etc handed round, with members of the family popping in, and all sitting round chatting with us and our sons. Really nice. But - our boys were put in one big double bed, and they speak about it to this day whenever the subject of beds comes up. The mattress really sagged, and both boys kept rolling into the middle and banging in to one another; some of it obviously done on purpose - they were competitive about everything - so rolling on a mattress was a big competition to win! But even when they settled down, they still kept rolling into one another - and our younger son, who by that age (around 9) was managing to sleep for about 90 minutes maximum  - had many hours of rolling around, unable to keep still. We had two very tired and rather grumpy sons at times for the whole of that week!

Nowadays it's easy to check ahead, using guide books, Trip Advisor etc, although one place we stayed at in September on the trek from SE England to the south of France stands out. We had left our leaving date a little fluid, and our usual hotel had no rooms free (Val Moret), so booked at a hotel we'd stayed at once before - well-situated (Colombey Les Deux Eglises), pleasant, comfortable, dinner not bad, just a bit quirky, with all the many decorative things around the room and hotel for sale, and a rather eccentric over-dressed room. The woman on the phone said there were no rooms in the actual hotel (it was the Journées de Patrimoine weekend), but there was one available at their chambre d'hotes right next door, but was 'a little more rural', but clean and comfortable. I took the room, not expecting much, as I'd tried phoning a few other places already and we needed a room for the next night. The room was up very narrow, rickety steps, with the bannister not properly fixed to the wall, poor lighting, a very high step up to the bathroom (I saw next day that other rooms actually had a loose step placed by the high step up to aid the climb), but our door was in the way, so no step. A bit like Gardian's example, very tight space in the bathroom, with elbows banging on the corner of the minute shower cubicle whenever you washed hands, cleaned teeth etc, and we spent a terrible night on a very uncomfortable mattress, which was very noisy and hot due to the plastic cover. I suppose I shouldn't grumble so much, as it only cost €45, with breakfast on top - but it wasn't any sort of bargain, and the drive south next day wasn't the best, as we were both still worn out. I can't imagine it had ever been passed as suitable for letting, on health and safety grounds alone!

I was so tired that when we went into the hotel building for breakfast next morning, I went across the breakfast room to pick up the self-service coffee jug to pour our coffees, and didn't realise it was still still filling from above - and coffee ran down all over the coffee machine, onto the buffet breakfast, down on to lots of packs of biscuits, pots of honey, fancy bits and pieces which were arranged below on shelves for sale and down onto the floor! I was mortified, as the young girl then had to wade in and try to rescue food etc and clean up, while other people were arriving for breakfast, too. But it was also very funny! Don't know if the hotel will take us ever again - although I'd never take one of their chambre d'hotes rooms again.

But the most memorable hotel stay was not far from Carcassonne about 15 years ago. I was given very copious instructions down to every turn and roundabout, which I rapidly noted down at various angles on pages of our guidebook (no GPS then!), and when we arrived we found that this chateau had pretty much gone to seed, although the setting was lovely. An old, rather elegant woman came out to the car, told us that all the vineyards around belonged to the chateau, and that the wine was very good. An excellent start! She took us upstairs and showed us the best room; huge and very ornate, with very fancy wallpaper and rugs all over the floors at funny angles on top of various carpets. She announced that this was the archbishop's room - and there indeed was a half-size figure of an archbishop in the room!! I immediately asked what other rooms there were vacant, and decided that as long as there wasn't a man waiting in the bedroom for us, we'd have it. This was another enormous room, simailar to the first, but untananted. While unpacking, we realised that the toile de jouy wallpaper was stuck on the vast walls in very tiny pieces, overlapping all over the place. There was a huge bathroom with very ancient fittings, and a separate large shower room. There were fancy scroll all around, and antique furniture; we discovered that all the rugs were hiding a very uneven floor, with what felt like gaps or holes underneath too.

We'd been shown a drawing room in which to sit when we'd unpacked, so we went down and sat around, looked at some of the book of photographs, and could hear the old woman on the phone for ages, mentioning drinks and a meal etc. Then finally a shriek - ''what time did you say?'' By then  it must have been after 7pm, and nothing had been done about dinner; she told us that it was chef's night off, and in fact she was the only person in the chateau. She offered us some of her wine - we had to choose it from labels stuck in albums - and then passed us other albums with all sorts of recipes in it, asking us to choose dinner. As we chose, she would say, no not that, or yes, that would be OK, but done like this instead or with different ingredients - so in the end I told her to tell us what was available. I found that it has all been cooked by her chef and frozen; we decided on our menu, and off she went. Then a very long wait ensued. Finally, after lots more delicious wine, she led us through the chateau and into the armoury for dinner; we were the only guests that night, and the huge room has wooden panelling and suits of armour, weapons etc displayed all around. Dinner wasn't at all bad, with madame going in and out all the time checking that all was well. It was so funny, and I think we were half-drunk before we got any food, as all there was nothing to do apart from look at the grand family photo albums and drink!

We actually slept very well - obviously all that wine! Maybe we wouldn't have even noticed the archbishop! It turned out that the woman was the titled owner of the vast estate and that she occasionally allowed a couple of guests to stay on weekends when the staff were all off duty. We didn't see madame the next day, just a young English woman, who was actually from our town in UK. She was one of several staff employed to try to get the hotel back on an even keel, and she had found bills, invoices etc all over the hotel and was trying to sort out accounts from many years. Quite a stay!

Then there was the B&B in the Drome countryside, which served several courses of endives for dinner ................... my handbag was very full and heavy when we finally retreated to our room!   [:D]

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

I think the worst one I can remember had the toilet in the bedroom.

No, not en suite. No, not just the washbasin.

IN the (double) bedroom. There was a curtain track running around it, but no curtain.

I was travelling solo and it was only for the one night, so put up with it.

[Martin963]

A small town not a million miles from Limoges,  c 1994.

Hadn't found anything we particularly liked - but in the end ventured into a small hotel.   A fearsome (small,  elderly,  few words,  dressed apparently in mourning garb) Madame said she had a room;   we tottered up ancient stairs - small dark depressing room but it would do for us for the night.   But she seemed to us one of the most unfriendly hotel owners we'd ever come across - and I had done my best to jolly her along as I speak reasonable French.   She was the sort of woman who makes one feel as though one's in the hotel for a dirty weekend,  and one has to remind oneself that one is sharing the room with one's wife,  not some floosie....

Almost tempted to go out to the car and not come back,  but we're not like that so went for a walk.   Dinner was on offer in the restaurant,  and as there seemed nowhere else....

Nice young girl serving at table,  who seemed no more popular with <la direction> than we felt we were.   The meal (which wasn't bad) was livened up a little by a naughty kitten who took great delight in outwitting Madame's attempts to keep her out of the restaurant (the kitten was called Germaine,  it's funny what one remembers) and by the end of the evening even Madame looked less volcanic,  but only a bit.

Later her husband (early 60s) came out - he'd been cooking.   The absolute opposite of Madame,  he was friendly,  his eyes twinkled,  he was d'origine Italien,   and he gave us a half bottle of the house wine.   We started to wonder how he coped with his wife...

The next morning we ran into him again,  and he insisted on showing us "next door".    Next door was a building adjoining the hotel premises,  unremarkable on the outside,  but finished to the HIGHEST standards of luxury internally.   I have NEVER seen anything like it.    Marble stairs,   electronic blinds,  expensive furniture,  gold taps in luxury bathrooms,   it honestly looked like a film set of a palace of some sort.   He was immensely proud of it,   and showed us every detail,   shutters opened and closed,   TVs appeared out of the wall,   it was just amazing.....  and in complete contrast with the dilapidated run-down state of the hotel.

He told us that his wife refused to set foot in this second building,  preferring presumably to terrorise the guests in the hotel.    I felt very sorry for him,   clearly retirement was going to be a tense affair for them.   But I was left wondering how on earth he had paid for it all......

......  certainly not from the repeat business his wife failed so spectacularly to drum up!