Grand Hotel du Midi

I rested well over two nights here. My room was large, the bed was comfortable, and the whole place was clean and quiet. The staff were welcoming and helpful, and the hotel is right across from the train station. It seems to have been quite classy once, and still has some of that charm. It’s sad that breakfast is no longer served and the meeting room on the ground floor has been left abandoned. Outside, though, the area was a real letdown: very rough and dirty, with rubbish all over the pavements, boarded-up old shops, graffiti and walls used as urinals. Clermont-Ferrand must have been splendid once. Seeing the station area in such a filthy state is scandalous.

The staff are friendly, but the hotel is inevitably very noisy. There are a handful of large, updated rooms for guests, alongside many tiny, dated rooms with old-fashioned bedding. The latter are used by people, sometimes families, placed there by the emergency homeless hotline, 115. Families may have to stay for weeks, living in cramped rooms where they can’t cook.

I’d only planned to stay one night, but everything went smoothly and I ended up staying three. The rates were more than reasonable, the cheapest I found. Staff were friendly and attentive, and gave me useful advice and information about the city and the surrounding area. The hotel is right across from the station. The bus stop just outside makes the city centre convenient to reach, about 5-10 minutes away.

In June 2023, I found the room gloomy and the old-fashioned hotel unwelcoming. It was noisy all night inside, with people making a racket, maybe drunk. The receptionist who welcomed us was clumsy and even rude. When he saw “Marrakech” listed as our birthplace on our ID, he started making ignorant judgements about Morocco, even though we hadn’t asked what he thought. Very awkward.