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!! 🤨

You sound like someone who communicates on holiday by just bellowing louder in English and complaining about Johnny Foreigner not fawning over you.

French employers 'respect their employees' because they were made to through industrial action, not like the racing to the bottom forelock tuggers we have here.

@ghostyslovesheets oooh we’re off to a Eurocamp in a few weeks in the Cote D’Argent. Really looking forward to it 😀 we’ve never done it before but the place looks awesome!

"I vowed never to go by car again to France. It is indeed a HUGE country in comparison to the UK"

It just takes a bit of planning.

We have been loads - I suppose that I did have the experience of holidays when younger just to appreciate how big it is. Spent many happy memories in the back of the car with DSis as a teenager listening to music, staring out of the car window, annoying each other and having some fantastic shared experiences in the evening at a French campsite en route. With a caravan, you don't travel fast to the South of France

I will admit DS does look at the planes now and asks why we can't do those. I don't think hell be doing camping in the future.

I smile and I'm very friendly. Have travelled and lived all over the world. I speak French. I also have French friends and they're lovely. But that week in 2008 was bad. Food on offer was watered down mussels (I make mussels myself and they're easy to do), pizza or very expensive meals. We went back to the same restaurant 3 times and despite it being the same staff and we had left tips, they weren't friendly or welcoming. In Spain, they would have treated you like family and offered free liqueurs at the end. And the food would have been super tasty and not expensive.

Having said that, french food has been living on its reputation for a looooooooooong time. They dont feel the need to keep improving it or to even hold its standard up imo

Service station description would apply to plenty of places in the UK. Public toilets in many places in the UK are horrendous. I agree it's very bad if a hotel can't provide food though. ( Not that you'd want to stay in every night but you ought to be able to expect to get food in the hotel that you're staying in.) Hope it doesn't result in you tarring any future trips to France with this brush. Sorry it's all been such a bad experience, OP.

France got rid of its squat WC's years ago, even their Aires don't have them...not seen that type for at least 10 years - the normal motorway service stations (the ones with shops) are very modern, decent food & not pricey either.

You can also park up for many hours for sleep if required, no £80 fine as per UK.

You sound like someone who communicates on holiday by just bellowing louder in English and complaining about Johnny Foreigner not fawning over you.

What a really nasty thing to say. MN does make me laugh sometimes though. The anger and insults because someone says something you don't agree with that has absolutely zero impact on you and your life.

Oh yeah the watery mussels,what is that?

We go to France every year. For us driving is an advantage. You can take whatever you want and it's cheaper than flying and means you don't have to rent a car to explore. It's not my kind of holiday to stay in one resort the whole time. The tolls are not that expensive considering the excellent quality of the roads. Driving in France is an infinitely better experience than driving in the UK, with the exception of the Paris ring road. We self-cater so as long as there is food in the supermarket and bread in the Boulangerie we are happy.

We went back to the same restaurant 3 times and despite it being the same staff and we had left tips, they weren't friendly or welcoming

Hilarious! "We went to a restaurant, the food was shit and the people were rude, so we went back twice more!"
Sounds legit.

No anger. Just not letting the xenophobic jibes pass without comment.

Ha, I'm actually not English and speak fluent French. I have lived and travelled in many countries and eat anything (or did before I became vegan a few years ago). I speak 6 languages and I'm learning another one.

I am very tolerant and usually have no problems fitting in. I was truly shocked at how it was. The place was beautiful and the accommodation clean and nice. Just the food and the people was bad and that to me is the most important part of being anywhere. I used to travel through france most years when I was little but I can't really remember from a kid's perspective. I need to ask my parents.

Maybe we were unlucky (Normandy) .

I LOVE going on long trips by car - both driving and being driven. I've loved it ever since I was a kid. When I was in primary my parents took me to US and we rented a car in New York and then drove to Santa Barbara stopping along the way. I still remember this is thee most amazing holiday! We are about to drive to Germany (where my parents live) and then drive from Germany to Italy for a 2 week holiday. I can't wait and prefer it infinitely to flying. No hassle with luggage/security/can stop for food and rest along the way. Plus, the car has lovely air conditioning and music. What's not to like?!

France got rid of its squat WC's years ago, even their Aires don't have them...not seen that type for at least 10 years -

Sadly I can assure you that they do! I was presented with some at an Aire en route to Normandy just at Easter. We go every summer and always see them at the Aires. I'm afraid I now use the disabled toilet (which does not look very disabled-friendly) as that at least has a toilet bowl, if not an actual seat! We only stop at the smaller Aires though, the bigger ones probably have slightly better facilities.

OP - I'm not going to comment on your holiday other than to say I'm sorry you're having such a rotten time. I live in France and absolutely love it.

If your DC are ill the equivalent of what you need to ask for in the pharmacie is DOLIPRANE ENFANT. Most pharmacists can speak a little English if you need to have the doseage explained. They will be shut for lunch between 12 and 2.
Hope your journey back goes well.

Lol! Have you never looked at an atlas, and thought "Blimey, France is much bigger than Britain"?

I once travelled from Croydon to Perpignan on the back of a motorbike. We took 3, maybe 4, days over the journey, but still I practically had saddlesores by the time we got there and was walking like John Wayne. I knew France was big, but didn't realise how much longer journeys seemed when you're on a bike and can't fidget, chat etc.

I don't think I ever travelled more than 100 miles on the back of a bike after that, I learned my lesson.

No anger. Just not letting the xenophobic jibes pass without comment.

It is not "xenophobic" to prefer to visit one country over another because you didn't enjoy it there. Ridiculous!

I smile and I'm very friendly. Have travelled and lived all over the world. I speak French

I don't know then. Not my experience at all, and we go quite regularly.

God, I do wish there was an edit function - the equivalent of Calpol is Doliprane.

France, Italy and Austria literally have THEE tastiest food in Europe/the world, so it's difficult to imagine it being "shit". Maybe some posters were just unlucky.

That restaurant was nice but very expensive. Crucially it was walking distance from our accommodation and as I was heavily pregnant and had 2 little kids that was more important.

Your holiday sounds shit and I hope you get home safely.
Don't write off the whole country though.

I actually choose holidays for its seafood. South of france was still great in the 90s but its slipped. Best places for it now are croatia, bosnia, venice lido and without a doubt Palermo. if anybody knows where theres still exception seafood to find in France let me know. I've never been to the Basque areas.