Hôtel Restaurant Le Relais de l'Estuaire

Breakfast had plenty to choose from, including fruit, ham, pastries and yogurt. Our room for three was spacious, clean and cosy, and the hotel itself was lovely and picturesque. Dinner was simply delicious, so congratulations to the chef. We’ll definitely recommend it.

We had a lovely, cosy three-bedroom room, and they let us bring our dog. The huge lake was beautiful too. The staff welcomed us warmly and were polite throughout, even though there was a language barrier.

The restaurant was a disaster. We waited about 45 minutes for our steaks, chips and salad, while the locals seemed to get their food almost immediately. When someone in our party tried to get the waitress’s attention, she growled and shouted something, then slammed our plates down ten minutes later. My salad was one wilted, half-rotten brown lettuce leaf. The steaks were meant to be medium rare, but came charred and crispy outside, only slightly pink inside. The chips were greasy and awful, some pale and soft, others dark and crisp. I never got my starter. Apparently it was at the tiny buffet, but nobody told us, even though they could easily have pointed it out. The menu was only in French, which I’m not complaining about, just mentioning. The €8.50 pizza, which costs £1 or £2 at Iceland, was perhaps the nicest thing we ate. We’re not fussy eaters, but we really wished we’d stopped at a McDonald’s instead. The food was disgusting, the atmosphere felt like a café, and the prices were like a Michelin-star restaurant. Most of our group felt queasy afterwards. The rooms were adequate and the hotel grounds were pretty, but the surrounding area felt dismal and depressing, with very little to do. We only ended up here because the accommodation we’d carefully researched and chosen went bust a week before our trip, so we booked this place in a rush.

If you’re into nature, the bathroom has lovely fishy smells, and it turns out there are cockroaches to investigate too. The steak was so tough you’d need to bring a mincer, or maybe a macerator toilet, to manage it. The staff don’t speak English, and if something goes wrong, the answer to your questions is hardly “ho ho ho.” Spend an extra 10 euros if you can and book a better room or somewhere else to stay. I’d like to ask the owner: when did you give up?