We have recently returned from an excellent holiday to the Provence & Dordogne. Where we had fantastic weather (until the last couple of days when it turned a but cooler), it was so hot we had t-shirts, shorts & sandals (or crocs) on every day.We had excellent drivers Brian & John.
We stopped at the Mercure in Orly on the outskirts of Paris for our overnight stop on the way there and on the way back. Lovely big rooms, nice selection for breakfast, although depending on your preferred tipple you won't be having many night caps, as the prices (shall we say) reflected the quality of this hotel.
Our 2nd hotel was the Park Inn, Orange which unfortunately left a lot to be desired. It was too far out of town along a road with no sidewalks for you to have a walk in the evening. While the rooms were nice and large and easily accessible, it took the porter just under 1 1/2 hours to deliver cases to the ground floor rooms although generally the staff were very helpful.
Despite having pre-ordered our evening meal the night before it seemed that they never cooked enough as 3 out of the 4 evenings at least one of our party had to wait until last for their meal which appeared after nearly everyone on the table had finished there's. It was general opinion that they had finished serving and literally went out and cooked more for those who hadn't received anything yet. Also worth noting the vegetarian option was non existent it was just the meal without meat. (How long does it take you at home to whip up an omelette, 10 mins?) & these were chefs at an international hotel.
The fact that there were 4 coaches of approx. 50 people each obviously didn't help but you do not expect such shabby treatment and disorganisation from an international hotel.
Breakfast was a different kind of shambles due to everything for the above mentioned 200 people being on 1 table and everyone seemed to arrive simultaneously. With only 1 pot of coffee & tea needless to say there was queues everyday sometimes 20 deep at any one time with the last day running out of croissants & bread. Obviously the staple french breakfast (again surely hotel management must have some sort of slightest clue as to how much people are usually or likely to require).
Now you may remember us mentioning the price of drinks at Orly. I don't think any of us were ready for the shock of the prices for a night cap at the park Inn (though I would say its cheaper to buy the house wine by the bottle than the glass unlike in the Paris Restaurant where it was the opposite. Similar price to England.) £5 for a small beer. £7.20 for a large beer. £10 for Jack Daniels. £13.50 for Hennessy Brandy & £16.20 for Martell Brandy. No we're not joking. Have you ever seen a hotel bar empty all night.
Orange itself when we had a free afternoon there was a lovely typical French town with side walk cafe bars etc, etc.
Now we will mention some of the trips:
Provence - city of fountains, this was a very large city with lots of fountains & plenty of historic buildings.
Pont Du Gard - Roman Viaduct, a very interesting place, with lots of information in this unusual museum and a very large viaduct outside.
Avignon, this was just huge with so much to see and do you just couldn't cover it all in an afternoon.
Marseilles, a very large city & harbour. If you choose to go on a noddy train make sure you pick the one that goes to Notre Dame.
Cassis, wonder around this lovely seaside town, with its easy going shops, be sure to sample one of the interesting flavoured icecreams from one of the many parlours. (one of us had apple with pieces of apple in it, never seen this in England).
Nimes, there is a very large arena here and a few cafe bars.
Rocamadour, this is a beautiful small village set into cliffs, as beautiful by day as it is by night.
Our 3rd hotel The Lion D'Or, wow what a contrast, the cases were unloaded onto a small van & driven 100 yards to the hotel & were at our 3rd! floor room door in less than 10 mins (see shameful time it took at Park Inn).
Note though the much smaller & basic rooms do reflect this much older hotels style.
The restaurant service was superb, as were all the staff. A vegetarian option, hot food as you ordered it, in fact they turned locals away each night because it was full.
We would personally come back to this hotel.
We visited Sarlat while we were here which was beautiful with loads of cafes, bars, shops, restaurants & gift ideas. Like Cassis & Rocamadour we'd certainly visit here again.
On the way back to Orly we stopped at the rather large town Limoges, this was way too big to look round in 2 hours and everything of interest was spread out, everybody agreed that they would have preferred a smaller more picturesque stop.
After a meal in Paris we had a brilliant tour round, so many sights to see & our drivers made sure we saw pretty much everything. Careful where you buy a coffee as fellow passenger sitting next to us was shocked to pay £5.40 for a normal cup of coffee.
Unfortunately the farce at Pidou's the last stop before the ferry where we had to change over onto our feeder coach made everybody unhappy as they had to collect and transfer their won suitcases from coach to coach, (porterage is supposed to be included on Silver Service)
It seemed to be totally disorganised as people & coaches were criss crossing the car park in a state of confusion.
There was not enough facilities here for the amount of people.
Michelle, Dave & Jean