Tag: complet

As I said previously, my assumptions that central France would be devoid of traffic, were completely unfounded.  First of all, there was nowhere to stay in Clermont-Ferrand. We must have visited at least twenty hotels only to be told that they were full, or to see ‘Hôtel Complet’ signs on their doors.  Every time we stopped we were either just behind or just in front of some people asking exactly the same question: “vous avez un chamber pour ce soir?”. This became very frustrating.  The weather was clouding over and night was drawing quickly in – we had to find somewhere.  We even phoned and asked the lady we had booked our gîte with to see if she knew of anywhere, maybe in her village, we would have driven all the way if we had to.  No such luck.

We drove further on, to a town called Issoire.  This was a much smaller town, obviously thriving as it had quite a number of hotels.  All full.

We drove on still further into the gloom towards small town called St. Flour. This was a pretty town in a (hilly) Harrogate sort of way – well equipped with hotels – all full.  However, one receptionist did suggest that such-and-such a hotel about five miles down the road (and into the countryside) would probably have some rooms. As before – all full.

However, the receptionist at this off-the-beaten-track hotel was on the phone to another hotel asking for rooms for the man who was in front of me (and being told that they too were ‘complet’). So, we knew now to bypass that particular hotel, and what’s more, the man at the counter was now behind us!

We eventually found a hotel at Garabit.  This, at the time, meant nothing to us but they did have a room for three people (their last) and we were able to finally stop for the night, after twelve hours on the road.  The meals here were interesting. We asked for a well-cooked burger for Betony (which came bleeding – I had to pretend it was ketchup). Sharon had a turkey drumstick, cooked like a confit of duck and I had POUNTI, which I had never seen or heard of before. It was like a hot slab of pate de terrine.

Altogether, the evening there was delightful, if a little cold. Our room was so cold that we had to bring in our quilt from the car – we would need this at Stephen’s place.

Our travel-luck changed the next day, because as the sun came up after we departed the hotel, we were in for a surprise. Despite some fairly bleak countryside outside the hotel itself we were soon to see some really beautiful sights.