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!! 🤨

More nightmare scenes.....As you can clearly see, France (all of it) is a shithole and on its knees.

Just visited another service station before the tunnel. It’s mobbed, never seem queues like it. Its sheer volume snaffling all of the sandwiches etc. It would be impossible to restock to the level of hordes arriving. So many people from NL. Maybe everyone is avoiding the airports. We have to queue to leave even. Tempers are fraying it’s fair to say but it’s cooler here at least.
Poor DS isn’t fairing too well but dd seems better. They feel well enough to fight in the back at least. Other dd said she will stay with gps next summer if I ‘make her do this again’ the car stinks, there are a million dead insects on the screen, I can barely see out and we look rested compared to the campers. How can anyone sleep in all of these caravans at night in 40-45c? ?
We are a weary bunch at Calais looking around. One poor mum is losing her shit in the car next door, I wonder if she is a fellow MNetter. I can’t wait to be in the U.K.
The food has been dire I am sorry to say. Michelin starred restaurants overrated and so expensive. Non Michelin no better. I really researched the restaurants too. The best dinner we had was a cheap pizzeria in Saint Gervais.
The ring road in Paris gave me nightmares for days. I am never doing that again as long as I live.

I am glad for everyone that is having/had a fab time on holiday. Sorry if I was tetchy earlier I had lost the will to live somewhat and didn’t consider my op in great detail when posting. Of course France is not a bad country at all, it’s struggling like everywhere else.

How long a holiday have you had actually at the place you wanted to go?
Driving from Scotland to Provence during the Bastille weekend on autoroutes via Paris and eating at autoroute service stations during a heatwave and with Covid is going to be challenging.

How much time has been spent on the road and how much time have you spent actually at the place you booked?

Do you have a flexipass ticket ?

I'm just back from a week in Northern France near the coast. The weather was lovely around 24 to 26 degrees every day with that refreshing breeze coming off the sea. We visited any number of practically empty white sandy beaches and without exception every single small town or village we went to was decked with municipal floral displays. The countryside was green and looked like a picture book. It was like Devon without the traffic. We didn't stop in traffic once, indeed we hardly had to stop for a red light. Lovely!

We weren't able to book a holiday this summer for family reasons, but I felt that if we had to miss out, this would be the year to do it.

There is obviously a lot of disruption due to various causes (post Covid, Ukraine etc) but it does seem you have been spectacularly unlucky OP, I'm afraid I have enjoyed reading your posts though.

Next holiday can only be better!

How can anyone sleep in all of these caravans at night in 40-45c? ?

aircon, we always had aircon as its 40+ degrees in France in the summer

Of course France is not a bad country at all, it’s struggling like everywhere else

It really isn't.
Our car was repaired (new radiator) inside two days, my partner needed AE, in/out within 2 hours.

You ve been unlucky and of course anywhere nr Calais will be jammed.

You certain went on a tour by using the Paris ring road but also went to Saint Gervais, surely you must have enjoyed Mont Blanc, St Ger is packed with places to eat.

You seem to have had à very fast drive if you left Provence this morning and are already in Calais.

You went to France when the tour was taking place in the mountains - its no wonder you've not had a great time - sorry that you've not had a good holiday. but my advice would be to avoid any region in france when the tour is taking place

at least when you have a good holiday you'll appreciate it

Yanbu. I have heard similar. France has a lot of problems

You could ask the travellers who have just vacated our village green.

By the look of it they got very frustrated with the heat and threw all their rubbish, garden waste, concrete slabs and ironically a fridge abou the place

Meanwhile we just stoically cope with it.

My last post should have gone against the thread 'How do people's cope in caravans'

I don't know how it got on here - must be the heat.

Its about 500 miles down a motorway, its not in Kenya.

Yes very beautiful, loads of brits have sold up since Brexit.

Few years ago, with the kids, did a day trip to the sea from the Dordogne and then a water park afterwards, i think it was about 2 hrs away, depends where you are staying, the place is loaded with places to swim in its many rivers.

Personally, prefer The Lot, less touristy, just as nice.

You can't be ok to make a comment like this.

Regardless of what you've heard the Daily Mail'esque thread title was wildly Unreasonable (and wildly inaccurate).

it's an 8hr drive - we stop over night - it has lovely towns, history and yes no sea but lakes and rivers - we canoe, eat, shop, swim - it's lovely

Not a surprise at all that things have been shut, it's the Bastille Day celebrations from Wed to Sun. I live right down South and have done for 20+ years since I was little and haven't experienced anything like your post, it sounds like a bad holiday rather than a bad place and everyone gets grumpy in 40 degree heat if they're not used to it. Give France another try another time, come to the Languedoc in Spring and you'll love it 😊

We left Provence days ago and drove to the mountains hoping it would be cooler and hotels with actual food - it isn’t. It was a furnace!

TBF - there is a bit of a heatwave at the moment.

And this is why camping with a BBQ is great. You can cook for yourself, have a beach, a lake, a pool, go to the supermarche and never worry about looking for a decent restaurant.

How old are your children op?

We then stayed over night closer to Reims last night. It was well planned on paper. How does anyone find this driving fun?!
My feet are swelling like trotters from the driving and heat and I am
looking red eyed, swollen and slightly deranged and getting pitying looks from border control. Dd is kicking off - kids are truly fed up. No data left apparently. I can’t believe how many
miles we still have left.

Oh god sounds shit. The American story made me laugh though. France has never been known for customer service so to the Americans it must seem so alien.

Hope you make it home soonest OP and you all get better.

As cakeorwine says there's just a bit of a heatwave at the moment and the mountains aren't exempt.

The Tour did a couple of Alpine stages mid week and media sources were quoting some pretty horrible temperatures on the various climbs.

You'll "have the thread taken down" because everyone didn't pile on and agree with you?!? MN will certainly get quiet if we all have to simply to nod at every OP! You are posting just after 14 Juillet so there will have been the equivalent of a tsunami of people travelling on the motorways and using service stations so they will no doubt not be looking their best for a few days!

OP either you are having an unfortunate time, you are one of those people who doesn't cope very well 'abroad' or you are some sort of Brexiteer trying to convince us that Europe is just as bad as Brexit Shitain.