Chambres & Tables d'hôtes Villa la Lorraine

I stayed solo for one night in early July during a road trip taking in 6 similar properties in France. I booked via *********** on the basis of the property summary on Trip Advisor. Easily found in the centre of the village due to the mauve/lilac exterior walls. Convenient for the Autoroute. The free parking turned out to be the Marie/Village Square public car park 200 meters away. Fortunately I arrived at 1700 when the front door was opened. An e mail (which I had translated) ) indicated that access codes would be sent by e mail on the arrival day. Nothing received. I had sent two e mails prior to my arrival requesting an evening meal (after a 7 hour driving day I didn’t want to find a restaurant). Neither was replied to. Upon arrival I tried to communicate with my schoolboy French and a smile, which until this experience has always sufficed. Madame responded with a volley of rapid fire French - I asked her to slow down but this simply increased the rate of fire! Basically there was no meal, and it transpired that the restaurant was shut. I was directed to a pizzeria - apparently turn right and 3 kilometres - turned out was turn left and 5 kilometres! Then a 150 euro deposit was demanded - oddly enough when I couldn’t follow this in French Madame used Google translate - strange that when my meal requests in English were ignored. Nothing on the TA summary about any deposit! The ‘introductory’ e mail advised that shoes had to be removed and stored in a specific lobby cupboard, so this was no surprise. I reasonably anticipated some level of luxurious/expensive carpet to support this policy. Very worn stair tread carpet inserts and a couple of old rugs destroyed this thought. Despite this shoe policy, dogs are allowed. Very odd. Needless to say bathroom type slippers were on sale. The front access and bedroom doors were controlled by 6 digit digital locks, the one on the bedroom being so small that I had to kneel down and use glasses to operate. I have never stayed in a property with so many notices of house rules (in English as well as French) ). I found it amusing that one referred to night time noise when the church bell 200 metres away chimed throughout the night every 15 minutes and rang the full number of hours. The bedrooms are themed - mine being Africa. The theme was created by the ‘artefacts’ that are commonly found in African airport shops. There were at least two full sized female mannequins dressed in antique wedding dresses in common areas. Some would call this quirky/artistic, others bizarre. The bedroom itself was a decent sized and comfortable, although the quality of the bed linen was questionable. The shower bathroom was clean and worked well. Strangely the bathroom lights were controlled by a remote device which allowed the light colours to be changed. It was obvious that the owners have a penchant for DIY work. WiFi was OK and the buffet continental breakfast was up to standard. Here endeth the rant, which I’ve