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!! 🤨

Imagine being in the hotel without a car so you couldn't get out and explore...

Did you have a hire car booked or had you just planned to stay in the hotel and eat there or locally?

I just don't understand why people are still killing themselves to go abroad for holiday

Because I enjoy it and I want to. I don't feel like I'm "killing myself" doing it either, I just go?
Campervanning in England isn't fun.

You went to more than one Michelin star restaurants in a week and were disappointed in them all?

Why is France struggling to recruit hospitality staff? Is it because people got other jobs during Covid and haven't returned to the industry?

Partly, but also because it's badly paid and young people don't want to work unsociable hours/weekends. Other jobs like hairdressers are having problems recruiting because of the obligatory Saturday working.

I can’t quite get around even considering this with two ill children (how old) in a heatwave after a dreadful proceeding 24 hours

reckless

Part of the problem was coming over the long weekend around the 14th July.

Loads of people take from Wednesday evening to Monday morning off - and that includes hotel and restaurant staff.

We had planned to have a few days by the pool with hired bikes, and cycle and then hire a car for 3/4 days to explore.It was too hot to cycle far.

It was lucky we had our car in the end as we wouldnt have eaten for days as the restaurant was closed and no room service!! And all village eateries closed. I have no idea how other guests are managing without a car if they flew and stayed there 🤷🏼‍♀️

GM understood why we were upset and refunded us the remaining nights so we could go elsewhere so I shouldn’t name them but it’s worth checking what’s actually open before you leave home.

The service has been terrible everywhere even when it was open.

England looks a lot like France but with more cars dd tells me and all are badgering to stop so dh outnumbered!

Personally I would throw money at the problem. Stop along the way at somewhere really nice. Beautiful dinner somewhere and tomorrow go for an earl walk before remaining 5/6 hours drive.

then at least fond last memory before getting home

I drove from the midlands to Venice in my camper in 2019 and 2020. On my own, with DD who was then ten. We had a blast. I’m
sorrry it doesn’t suit you, and I don’t want to invalidate your experience, but you do sound quite determined to be miserable about it.

in 2019 they had an unusual heatwave in France as we drove through, and we actually drove longer ‘legs’ with fewer stops, driving through the heat of day in the air conditioned camper. DD never complained once - she helped plan and make decisions (and I bought her unlimited data). The French and Italian people were lovely. Certainly, we had a few mishaps, but we were doing something fairly unusual and expected to come across hitches. We faced them all with good planning and a good attitude, and we’d be there now if covid hadn’t done horrible things to my income.

I’m truly sorry you are having such a poor experience, but I wanted to add some balance for anyone who might get the impression your experience is universal. The picture below is a free French aire near Reims (where campers are welcome to stay for nothing in all kinds of places) and shows the sort of experience we had.

@Eeksteek

I think you might have quoted the wrong person - I love driving in Europe. We are going to Italy ourselves in a few weeks.

But the idea of a long drive with few stops from the Alps to Dover to Scotland with sick kids, tired kids and in a heatwave is not my idea of fun. I would break it up, take time to relax and get better.

We are taking a very leisurely trip down there, and a leisurely trip back.

Maybe it was Bastille weekend that made things worse, but the hotel have been operating on a reduced time table for months, but didn’t update their website. We have never stayed anywhere that didn’t at least offer a small menu 247. It didn’t occur to me to double check the hotel served food. 😑

We were just there and had a lovely holiday. Stayed in a 5 star hotel just North of Paris. The children loved it so much we are heading back in August.
We didn’t have your problems.

Beautiful dinner somewhere

They all have Covid!!

Try the A28, two out of three are squatters, even the ones marked ‘femmes’

We are stopping soon! Found a lovely place. I think the receptionist thought I was out of my tiny mind asking if they served food 😂😂 Another weirdo asking stupid questions.
Thanks for keeping me company and to everyone who is on their travels or spoke to be. Check everything twice! Pack tons of food, a bag with loo roll, unlimited data for dc and Imodium!!!! 😎
If someone has a hacking cough right next to you at the pool it’s NOT impolite to pack up and move !! Very very quickly dragging kids with you 😊

So sorry to hear how crap your holiday has been OP! Don't think it helps at all having posters saying how amazing their holidays have been I hope you get home and recover quickly

Proper order. Its way healthier to squat. We didn't evolve to shit as if there were invisible toilet seats in the Olduvai Gorge.

You’ve had a shit time OP, how disappointing - and no doubt a massively expensive one too which is really depressing.

To generalise about France as a whole though is completely unfair. We’re heading back to Scotland from 2 weeks in SW France (just ahead of the Arcachon fires) and have had a great time. Had to stop at many aires/service stations (and visit a doctor kindly arranged by our hotel owner) because a (non-viral) issue DC had before leaving flared up but in our case we didn’t have issues with queues, flies etc and have generally found prices no more than where we live in Scotland. Loved watching the Bastille Day fireworks and for any vegans in the area, there appears to be a vegan cafe in Sare (I was v disappointed to discover I had been served an oat milk hot chocolate 🤦‍♀️ - DH got my rage at that, he claims his French is good…).

The UK service station motel I booked on the way down only provided one double bed for the four of us however and the staff there weren’t able to rectify the situation (fully booked, I definitely booked for 4!) so that was a cosy night….

I strongly recommend the Newhaven - Dieppe ferry. Broke up the journey by staying in Dieppe both ways and we had a lovely evening last night, beautiful sunset. Nice clean ferry and had a quick whizz around the market in Dieppe before catching the ferry.

For those of you with a French holiday in the pipeline, shitness is not an inevitability!

I am sorry you are all ill and hope you feel better soon.
I think you would have had lots of sympathy if you had posted about having a terrible holiday in France. The negative comments are because you implied that all of France is like this, when it clearly is not.

I live in paris and travel around France. I'm not trying to be obtuse on purpose but honestly, I've never encountered rude or terrible service. Mediocre and surly at worse a couple of times but typically, much more welcoming than the UK. Bonjour, ca va, au revoir, a bientot are universally said in shops, restaurants, hotels etc. I think you've just been unlucky or maybe bristley yourself and got it back.

Another weirdo asking stupid questions.

what a peach!

We go to France quite a lot and restaurants can be a bit sniffy if you don’t speak french.
Mine is passable and I’m happy to have a go.

I do think you were also unlucky with that weekend. We tend to avoid it.

Make sure to book in advance, they're crazy busy. The fish cooked in salt is divine and the restaurant is open air, overlooking Gruissan's pink salt plains. There's also a salt museum right next door where you can buy every flavour salt, including chocolate 😂

Hopefully one day in the future you'll laugh at all this @Provenceinthesummer

Might take a good few years right enough.....