More of a hotel woe than travel woe, and nothing to do with aeroplanes, but an amusing story all the same.
Alsace, 2006.
Mr & Mrs S have booked ourselves into what sounded like a very nice guest house, "The Four Seasons", for 2 nights as part of our tour of the area and vineyards.
Arrive at said guest house, greeted by a huge cube of a woman who talked louder than I could shout. As she bellowed us to enter, the first thing I saw was an enormous display of ceramic penguins.
Throughout our journey round what can only be described as a tip of a house, it became clear our loud host had an obsession for penguins. If it was penguin shaped, she'd got it. If it was penguin coloured, she'd got it.
We were later introduced to the long-suffering husband of the Penguin woman. Sweatiest handshake I've ever had. And it was like meeting Frankenstein's monster for real.
We were in the "green room". And the name was certainly a good indicator as to what we were met with inside.The kind of overpowering green that makes you feel slightly sick after just a few minutes. As if clambering over endless piles of tour guides and over-accommodating "facilities", the room clearly had a serious damp problem too, which added to the algae effect of the Green Room.
The jaccuzzi was so indoors, it might as well have been in the living room. And you could barely see the water for various floaty penguins. The outdoor pool was in such a state of neglect, we didn't even go near.
It became clear that this place was a mistake. Fortunately our saving grace, and the planned highlight of our trip was a very posh and expensive hotel in the Alsacian countryside. In desperation, we called said hotel and booked a second night, replacing our scheduled second night in the Green Room. Fortunately our cancellation went down OK with our loud host.
However, this was a table d'hôte, so we were due to dine with the owners and other guests (who were also probably colourblind by now, given that all rooms were coloured). With an evening meal made out of just about every ingredient I don't like, dinner was an interesting affair. As the penguin woman physically shouted over all other conversation in order to be predominantly heard, it started to feel like we'd been kidnapped and tied to our chairs.
Slightly worried glances from other guests indicated that we were all feeling similarly terrified, as our host bellowed so loudly it was uncomfortable - yet for her it was normal conversation. After a gruesome pile of dessert, we were the first to make a move back to our room, to which there followed a mass exodus. Coincidentally, honeymoon packages are available!
We were up at the crack of dawn the following day and started our long drive to our next destination of a fancy hillside hotel.
We finally got there. Clearly the photos on the fancy website had either been Photoshopped, or taken 30 years ago. It was like the hotel from The Shining. Decaying, derelict, damp and disgusting. The kind where "original features" mean the flush and bathroom fittings have never been changed or cleaned. And we had booked two nights here.
After a row with the manager, it became clear that our deposit was not going to be returned to us, so we concluded it was actually worth paying him for us NOT to stay there!
We left and drove aimlessly for several hours through unknown territory, in desperation of finding a hotel with rooms available, at an acceptable standard. Which we did eventually, but it was was to say the least, a tiring and unfortunate couple of days.
