We were travelling a long distance from the Algarve to Cherbourg and decided to stay here as it looked to be a lovely hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant. It was an anniversary and we thought we would make the stop into a special occasion.
Surprise surprise, it was a Tuesday and the restaurant was shut! ("Welcome to France" I hear you say). Never mind and we asked the reception staff for a recommendation for a nice restaurant that we could walk to. Usually reception staff in a good hotel would pick up the phone and make a reservation for us. Not here. Armed with two recommendations we set off on foot down a long hill towards the beach passing several closed restaurants on the way. 1200 meters later we got to the beach and there was not one bar or restaurant in the place open! We managed to find a Spar shop to buy some food for the room. The time was 1645 hrs but even the Spar shop was shut.
I was more than slightly tired and hacked off by this stage and went to speak with the reception staff and related our experience. I was told "Well it is January, what do you expect?" I pointed out that be that as it may be, people still have to eat!! I cancelled breakfast for the following day as I didn't wish to give anything more to this hotel than necessary.
Back in November we were in the Dordogne and asked when a particular restaurant was going to open? April came the reply!!
Again, to be fair to this hotel, this review really reflects our feelings about Guethary and, indeed, much of France at this time of the year. I've no doubt that our reviews, had we actually been able to buy so much as a sandwich, would have been five star but service does not appear to be the strong point of our neighbours.
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