France is a nightmare

[Provenceinthesummer]

And you think it is bad in the U.K. come to France and see what a country on it’s knees really looks like.

We arrived hoping for a relaxing road trip and holiday. Every service station is littered with rubbish, most of them they have run out of food, loo paper and filthy tables and chairs so there is nowhere to even sit.

We finally arrive at a five star hotel to find out the restaurant is closed every day for three days - apparently the French F&B crisis is worse than ours! No chef, no waiting staff. They couldn’t even provide a basic room service menu. Every restaurant in the area also closes on the same days which was helpful.

Fawlty towers ensues as we try to meet basic needs of water and resort to the mini bar nuts for dinner. The gardens and pool are a mass of wasps and flies and the baking heat makes it an unbearable experience. I have never been to a hotel with no food anywhere in the world !!

Parched, starving and exhausted we check out the following day and find a hotel with food - all good apart from the fact there is no air conditioning and it’s 36c minimum here. It’s also rated five star apparently. Sleepless, exhausted and dizzy from the heat we drive in the car to ‘cool down’ and after a few miserable sweltering nights we decide to check out to next hotel - which promises great things like air conditioning and actual food only to find out the housekeepers are now non existent, all have covid. The number of people coughing and ill around the pool and in the hotel is alarming. The food is so bad it’s made me sick every night, kids are now refusing to eat anything else apart from crisps!

I haven’t slept for over a week - now facing a 12 hour grumpy drive home, I developed a severe sore throat and shakes overnight and it’s 39c! We have paid a fortune for this ‘ holiday’ and I can not wait to get home!! 🤨

I think a lot of places would have been closed around the Bastille Day public holiday on 14th.

My mum lives in the Haute Pyrennes area and we visit every year. Local restaurants have very odd opening times, often only serving lunch from 12 to 1.30. Maybe that's something to watch out for! They also frequently don't open at all. We normally eat at home 😂

So sorry you are all ill and far from home, it's horrible for you and no kind of holiday. Good luck with getting home.

When it comes to holidays with kids you can't beat Italy. Italians as a rule are much more welcoming of and tolerant of children than anywhere else.

The Manager told us the hotel industry are struggling to recruit people

At least they can't blame Brexit!!

I'm truly sorry you're having such a rotten time, OP - it's no fun at all, especially with sick kids - but hang on to that sense of humour and look forward to the day when it'll be the party anecdote to beat them all

Fgs

This sounds really shit for you, OP, and such a shame after looking forward to it for so long. I suppose at the very least, one day (not yet!), it will become a funny tale to tell.

I’m sorry you’re having such a shit time OP. Holidays aren’t cheap and don’t come round that often. I’m sure you’ll be able to laugh about it in time, but that doesn’t help now. I hope you’ve managed to salvage something from it and that you get home without any more drama.

OP sorry you've had a rubbish time. Maybe it feels even worse because you've been looking forward to the holiday so much ...

Personally I have no desire to holiday in France after one or two mixed experiences. I don't really understand why so many people chose to go to France, especially by car (know this wasn't your choice but a necessity given flights cancelled). I much prefer Spain and Italy tbh. I find the vibe more chilled and the people friendlier. No doubt many posters will tell me I'm wrong but this is my experience

I salute the French ways of respecting employees, whether it's retail or hospitality - jobs that in my own country and the UK treat people badly.

They get proper time off, and no, most shops are not open morning, noon and night and that's fine.

You learn very quickly how dining works here (lunchtime is strict, and the kitchen closes). Your best bet for finding something nice to eat outside of that is to look for ethnic restaurants. A very memorable late lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant springs to mind 👌🏻

I like the car because of the freedom and because we camp.

The drive down is great. Changing scenery. The chance to find a campsite by a river on the way down, set up a BBQ and relax with some grapes, cheese and wine. It's perfect.

On the up side, the OP has been in Provence in prime lavender season, which you will have missed by the end of August. So there are some advantages!

Operation brock @Provenceinthesummer , the barriers have been up for years

€1.95/L this morning in our local Super-U (we're in Calvados)

Agreed.

Always an upside

I've a fantastic solution for you. Get DH, whose fault all this is, to drop you and children off at Avignon TGV and get the train to Paris, and from their the Eurostar to London, then a train to Scotland. You can argue that's it's his fault, that you and the child are too sick to drive and that DH will have peace and quiet on the wonderful French roads which he sold to you in the first place.

I actually did this once, but I was massively pregnant and could not sit cramped in a car for the long journey. Best decision I ever made. I had a terrible leg problem for that particular child no idea why.

They have covid @Cailin66 , not sure going on public transport is the solution

Sounds very disappointing. Re the Italy is amazing comments, yes, completely agree and I prefer it to France myself. But we were in Italy a month ago and also had a hotel with no restaurant or bar service experience, which was quite similar to the op’s. We’d been before and knew that the hotel was in area very poorly served for restaurants but booked anyway as the hotel itself did amazing food. Well, it was closed for three nights without any explanation. I’ve also experienced a holiday in Sicily where 99% of everything from leaving the plane to arriving back at the airport to go home went wrong - crap accommodation, no information, trains not running, crap food, museums closed, rubbish everywhere. So I can sympathise!

They can wear masks. In any case they are probably 5 days in so out of isolation, also there is covid everywhere. It's rampaging all over the place. I know loads who have had it recently and it was pretty mild.

Hope you enjoy it. We’re North Dordogne.
if you want to go to a lake Mondays are usually quieter.
And velorail is fun but book first.
Check on bank holiday days, there is definitely one in August.
Also lots of bars have music Friday or Saturday nights.
My advice is put the name of your nearest town on fb and you’ll find out what’s going on.

True @Cailin66 , I don't suppose they'd be the only ones who'd have it

There is actually a site that’s shows french strikes so you can avoid them.

www.cestlagreve.fr/

Service stations, hotel restaurants, etc are all invariably rubbish in the UK too. I don't think we can call the whole of the UK rubbish based on its travel industry though.

I agree you had a bad holiday though and having covid and the heat probably makes it feel 10x worse. I hope you all feel better soon.

Wishing you a safe journey home it all sounds awful.

And you’re glued to your phone updating mumsnet! 😂