Coté-Serein La Privilège de la Tour Madame

We only stayed one night, but it was still a lovely visit. The room was small but pleasant, with a pretty view. The staff were extremely nice and took great care of us. I recommend it.

The kitchen was fine and had everything, though we didn’t use it. The welcome was friendly, but it didn’t make up for the lack of comfort and practicality. We felt very uncomfortable here. The building may be historic, but inside it felt ugly, cluttered with odds and ends, arranged without taste, and short on basic common sense. A big disappointment. The photos gave us the wrong impression. The interior was neglected and impractical, and the apartment didn’t match what had made us want to book. Outside, the property was pleasant, but the terrace was an unsightly pile of junk, perhaps garage sale leftovers, with worn out deckchairs and ugly, tired wrought iron pieces. It didn’t invite us to relax. Inside, there was the same jumble, as if things had come from a garage sale or Le Bon Coin. The living room had worn, mismatched furniture that didn’t make us want to sit down, and nowhere to put our things. We ended up putting suitcases and clothes on chairs, with other belongings on the table. The bedroom did at least have a very comfortable king size bed, but that was the only good thing there. The closet door was blocked by the bed, the large yellow cushions were unappealing and had to be moved to the living room sofa, and there was no place to hang clothes or put things down. There were a few random, inadequate hangers on a peg in the hallway by the bedroom, which was really inconvenient. The bathroom had no space for our belongings except beside the silly raised round sink that splashed the neighbors. The toilet paper was like cigarette paper. Do hoteliers realize you use ten times as much of that as normal paper? There was no grab bar in the shower. For the first two days, the promised fruit wasn’t there at breakfast. On the third, we asked for kiwis and got them.

The cottage’s fireplace and lovely terrace overlooking the Serein made our short week at Tour Madame especially nice. The owner was very pleasant and gave us great suggestions for places to visit. Breakfast was perfect, too. I highly recommend it. Didier Mazzucato

The grounds looked quite neglected, as if a tornado had passed through two days earlier. The courtyard hadn’t been swept in ages, so the owner swept it while we were there. The terrace has a lovely view, but the plastic furniture was in poor shape and clearly not maintained. The pool below was closed on June 22nd, even though the pump was running, which made it seem like it was still operating. There were cobwebs in an attractive but impractical interior, and we were charged an extra €15 for our dog, who had to stay outside whenever we were away, whatever the weather. The owner seemed inflexible and impatient, and quickly ended the phone call when we gave feedback. At €147, the whole experience left me with very mixed feelings. I’m responding to the owner’s reply to my first post. I take my dog everywhere I can, even now that he’s 16. I try to choose accommodation where he can spend some time outdoors, which rules out hotel rooms. I didn’t take him on a 9 km hike through the Chablis vineyards. Is that mistreatment? I didn’t leave him in the car while I ate at a restaurant, which would also be mistreatment. I asked the owner, who I thought would understand because he has a dog, to let mine into the apartment around 8 pm, with the bedroom door shut and a chair in front of the sofa. But no. And I didn’t stay out all night in Chablis, where I wonder where I would even have gone. I got home at exactly 10:10 pm. Pathetic!