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've just got back from France. This is not my experience at all.

I am worried about getting back, I feel shaky and sick. Kids are clearly not well. It’s so far and daunting tbh

Peak Mumsnet. I suppose OP should be grateful she had a holiday at all. it sounds proper shit.

I haven’t had a holiday since 1942 during the war and there was no food at all as it had been sent to the troops so I had to eat a dead budgie from someone’s bombed out house. There was no bed at the hotel as it had burnt down so I slept in a pothole in the road. Still I tried to be grateful and make memories, I was very privileged to have a holiday at all.

come to France and see what a country on it’s knees really looks like

christ mumsnet is SO DRAMATIC. You having a shit holiday does not equal an entire country being “on its knees” 🙄

@slashlover In France I never drank water from taps and most people didnt, not everywhere tap water is fine to drink really.

That sounds like a really unpleasant trip OP - must be really gutting 🙁

I'm just back from four nights in the south of France and we didn't experience any of these problems, so it is a bit unfair to claim it is France as a whole that is a nightmare.

Tbh the service stations on the standard southern France route are always dirty. We tend to vary our routes a little bit so we have different options to stop and eat. You do sound like you're all poorly which is going to massively affect your point of view. Have a safe journey home.

Oh come on op play by the rules. This is MN so the only country you are allowed to run down is the U.K. Everywhere else is a wonderful paradise in comparison especially Europe.

That does sound normal for a service station in France in summer though.

Thank you for making me laugh! Feeling properly worried about little dd her temp is very high. It’s the disappointment I think, as we set out so excited. I am looking up supermarkets near motorways that’s a good idea. Although now we are ill no one is asking for food! Something to be grateful for at least.

We’re driving down to Annecy stopping along the way. Hope it’s ok. Hope we don’t catch covid before then or on the crossing.

My neighbours went to France 2 weeks ago. 2 days before they left, they were informed that due to covid they couldn’t offer the house that they had booked as the owner was too ill to get it ready. This holiday was carried over from 2020 so they couldn’t cancel again and managed to find an Air BnB which was ok, but they managed to get into the house they booked for the last 2 nights.

Hope you recover soon.

Sorry your holiday is rubbish, OP. You have been super unlucky as France us usually lovely. I do hope you get home without feeling too poorly.

Next year, book it at different location and time of year.

Agree re. The service stations. They are generally terrible. But I like the aires ( sorry forgot exact way to spell now) . You can get sone v nice uncrowded pretty ones with nice picnic areas. I enjoy driving in France once I’ve dodged the strikers, burning hay bales, migrants etc. French motorways are a million times more pleasant to drive on than U.K. ones simply because there are fewer cars on them so you can day dream more. I also like driving on the right. It’s the correct side to drive on imo. I have trouble converting back to left when I return to U.K.!

Oh no, being ill away from home is no fun. If you don’t have Covid (although as your DD has it, that seems likely), could you possibly have heat stroke? We’ve been to Provence in the May half term and it was glorious, but I imagine it is too hot in July. We go to Northern France every August and have a lovely time. It’s usually just a bit warmer than the UK, which suits me. No it’s not the same tourist experience as a resort in southern Spain for example, France doesn’t have resorts built for British tastes and sensibilities, but we still always have a great holiday (in my experience at least), so I wouldn’t write off the whole country just yet!

It sounds like a truly awful holiday OP.

To the posters telling you to go shopping because everything you need is in the Intermarché, you paid top euros for 5 and are getting 2. I’d also be furious.

Dd just tested positive - glad I brought LFT with us, weird because she only had covid 3 weeks ago, and tested negative repeatedly in between. Is it even possible to catch covid twice in as many wks? Is this a new thing?

Its really selfish to come to the pool with so many kids and babies and be coughing everywhere and clearly ill.

No one is saying OP should be grateful for a shit holiday and I’m sure if she just said ‘look at all these disasters we encountered on holiday’ I’m sure she would have had a lot of sympathy.
However to claim an entire country is “on it’s knees” because of one bad week long holiday is obviously laughable.

5 star and 2 star - not sure why that was bolded.

It sounds like you could have covid or a different illness.

What I noticed with covid was how irritable I was! And it must be even worse in the heat!
This could absolutely be clouding your judgement.

You and your DCs don’t sound well and if possible I’d take it easy for a day or 2 and not travel back just yet incase you start feeling worse.

And this is why we always book self catering places, shop at supermarkets, look at restaurant reviews on tripadvisor and hire a car. Never had a shit holiday. Learn from this experience OP

The costs of the tolls is eye watering tho. Over 100 euros on one leg so they are at least empty making it easier.

Yes I agree @sashagabadon , the aires are much better, and preferable to British service stations as they’re usually quite pleasant places to sit outside with a sandwich.

This^^

Sounds like the OP lucked out...

Been out and about by road most days in our part of France this week on business of sorts, bearing in mind it's week one ish of the holidays and Thursday was the big national holiday the trains were still running, buses running, roads OK, and we were even brave enough to visit the big city and even the tube worked...

TBF he comment about wasps has some basis in fact (due two hot summers and a mild winter)

@PaperTyger

39!!
Where are you?how is it coping in the heat?

For info in our case and for general context we're south central France.

Every one of the last last 5 days has hit 38 celsius plus, we've hit the magic 40 celsius already and we look like going above 40 again over the weekend all weather that I guess the UK is going to get a taster of that in a couple of days.

Mitigation locally has included things like the bin persons shifting their rounds to overnight..people cope.

I can't speak of the hotels, but surely you aren't surprised that Provence is hot in July? It's on the Med! That weather is exactly why I don't visit relatives on the south of France at the height of summer.