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!! 🤨

Dh cheerfully suggesting the train next year instead, seriously

I suppose camping in France isn't an option? I am sure people on MN could give plenty of advice

(Although I am sure showers and rose are already well sorted. )

Thats good then, hope you all get a sleep

OP I recommend hiring a house/villa to stay in another year and to buy breakfast food like croissants, yogurt and fresh fruit, take a baguette and fruit for lunch and eat out in restaurants for dinner. You could also do a BBQ at a house too. I have a second home in Morlaix in Brittany and that is what I do. We always eat out for dinner and some lunches too but have breakfast at home and sometimes take a baguette to beach.

I would never stay in a French hotel because their campsites are just amazing. However I think you are making sweeping generalisations!

I think the Dordogne is overrated personally. There are plenty of other nearby departrments which are at least as beautiful, probably moreso, and much less crowded and touristy. I'd say where we are, but I don't want loads of tourists descending on our little paradise

We just had a brilliant holiday in Brittany with none of those issues.
I'm sorry you've had a rubbish time though. I've had holidays in the UK like this, but funnily enough, never in France or elsewhere on the continent.

Good point!!

This was my 7 year old brother who was no way going to have tablets poked up there, and cant say I blame him. No good can come from poking things inside you Imo.

What no further updates?

I think there's a lot of sense in administering medicines that way. I found it an absolute godsend with migraines because my digestion shuts down so painkillers taken by mouth achieve nothing.

Medicines are absorbed more quickly and effectively when administered as an enema rather than orally. There is a lot of sense to it.

This is my experience too.

I think there are a few basic rules you need to respect, like when you walk into a restaurant, you make eye contact, smile and say "bonjour", and you make an effort to speak a little bit of French even if you can only manage "bonjour", "s'il vous plaît" and "merci".

Some people don't get that, like for example, a friend of mine came to visit me in Paris once, and she went to a café when I was at work and she walked in and sat down at an empty table and the waiter ignored her. When we talked about it afterwards I said the waiter had probably taken it as a snub and thought she was being rude. The next day she tried the French way and reported back like, "Ohhh. It makes all the difference, doesn't it?"

Light bulb moment.

But honestly, I find that as long as you respect these basic forms of courtesy, service is certainly no worse in France than in the UK, and often fantastic. And you don't have a 12.5% service charge whacked onto your bill which you are expected to pay regardless of how shit the service was, either.

No doubt feeling a little sheepish about moaning about selfish families “clearly with covid” at the swimming pool

and then delighting in prospect of staying at a hotel and eating out - when “clearly” members of her family have covid!

@babyjellyfish Since 2008 there has been a 15% service charge automatically included in restaurant and café bills in France, which is why French people rarely tip now!

Tipping's not really been much in the culture anyway, traditionally if you paid cash you'd leave the server a bit of the lose change..

Problem is tourism and especially our friends from over the Ocean who have changed expectations around some of the tourist hot spots.

Err how did you get pregnant?? ;-)

I can understand a seven year old might not be keen but suppositories by-pass the stomach so no nasty gastric side effects.

I loved the Dordogne! We stayed on a Dutch owned campsite with a wild swimming lake. Took our bikes and went for some brilliant rides; went to a château and did a labyrinth through the forest (so much fun!) and played medieval games on the lawn. We kayaked down the river too. The landscape is beautiful, and the swimming lakes are everywhere! One of my favourite holidays ever!

Supportive is not blindly agreeing with you. This is aibu. You have explained your experiences and made a statement that the country is on its knees. Others are saying they have t found that. Your post could put people off going and this effects peoples livelihoods. So people have every right to give an alternative perspective.

Clearly you have had a hideous time and feeling awful but you are being a brat..

I stayed in a 4 star hotel in Wales a few weeks ago and there was no food on certain because they had no chef on those days. I had deliveroo. It does happen in the UK too.

Sounds like you all have covid OP - something likely to happen in these conditions. Why are you and your family staying in hotels and eating out when you have covid. Surely that's not responsible?

I would recommend a villa for any families or even an apartment not a hotel. You can make your own food.

It sounds an utterly shit holiday, awful and at the moment you are in France, so, at the moment France is a nightmare. For you. And this is your thread!

FFS some people on here are so self-righteous.

10 years ago I had one of my all-time favourite holidays in the Dordogne. Doesn't take away from OP's experience which sounds hellish!

Hope you get some money back from the hotel OP due to the lack of amenities.

Well pregnancy hasnt arrived yet, so I'll stick by the mantra no good can come from sticking things in yourself until it does, especially up the back entrance. The idea gives me the shivers, anyway il stop before people think I'm the bumming troll.

Sorry @SpaceGoatFarm i didn’t read your post properly - you were talking about your brother, but your child!! I shouldn’t try to be witty 😔

Jesus I am white hot with the rage. But we are home at long last!
I haven’t been able to post because I have driven all the way back with a burning temp and body shakes whilst dh has been bleating pitifully how ‘poorly’ he is. Kids both positive this morning. Ds being the worst poor wee lamb.
The drive back itself was good, we left first thing and we had a good run, but holy Jesus I arrive back and the cat sitter didn’t think to mention she hasn’t seen the car ‘in a few days’ dh has taken to his bed leaving me with mountains of unpacking and washing. I can’t help but seethe how bad it has all been and now we are home I even more angry. Hotel emailed with an apology but no compensation - so clearly do t care our holiday was wrecked.

It is unfair to haul dh out of his scratcher and tell him to get on with it?!! Someone has too!!

We’ve booked our first ever holiday with the kids (they are 7 and 6) to the Dordogne later in August. Driving down and staying at a Eurocamp style place so have found the advice on here useful. Really looking forward to it but can’t lie I’m a bit nervous now! Hope you all start to feel better soon OP.