la Chambre des Dames

The house is lovely, with thoughtful details everywhere. That breakfast table was a delight, and the stone walls kept the bathroom and the empty main room pleasantly cool. The bedroom, though, was upstairs and about 15 degrees celsius warmer. At night it was either too hot to sleep or we had to put up with the very, very loud single-unit AC. On our first night I barely got 3 hours of sleep. At breakfast I told the owner, “Wow, that’s beautiful, thank you.” She smiled, then offered us surgical mouth/nose coverings, saying we wouldn’t be allowed into any castles with the cloth ones my wife and I had been wearing since the coronavirus measures started in Germany early that year. I politely declined. We’d already spent a week in france without any trouble using those coverings. That set off a long lecture about how we were basically bad people. I left the breakfast room and waited outside for her to finish. When I came back five minutes later, she was speaking to my wife even more aggressively. I asked her to stop and let us eat, or we’d cancel our second night and go elsewhere. She then accused me of threatening her. I sat down and, exhausted, pleaded with her to leave me alone so I could have breakfast. After that I ignored her and kept answering, “No, thank you, I’m good.” Eventually she left us alone, and even brought my wife a crepe, which was apparently very good. You could explain it as an anxious hotel owner overreacting because of covid-related business losses. But the other guests weren’t all wearing surgical masks either. At least one woman had a cloth covering, as lots of people in france did. From what I saw and heard, they didn’t get the same lecture or aggression. Since they were french and we weren’t, I’m hesitant to draw the obvious conclusion that she treated people of different nationalities differently. Maybe it’s five stars if you’re french and visit outside the warm season. Otherwise, run!