Les Mottes - Gandelain

A Smith

I can only describe this place as a dump!

I can't believe 'Les Mottes' is being offered as a serious option for accommodation and would advise anyone against booking it. We needed somewhere to crash and break up a long drive north and booked at the last minute, we will be more careful in the future! We ended up walking out and driving another hour to a hotel in Caen.

Booking was straight forward and a few emails from the owners seemed positive, but that's where the good news ends.

Finding the place was a mission, it's properly in the middle of nowhere, not in itself a bad thing, but even when we did find it there were no signs to suggest we had arrived in the right place. It's accessed down a narrow single track drive, with broken lights down the side - alarm bells were starting to ring at this stage and I was glad we arrived in the daylight. At the end of the track we were greeted with what looked like a rubbish tip / scrap yard (still didn't know we were in the right place and starting to hope we weren't), a broken down car with bits hanging off, a rotting caravan, various piles of junk and rubbish scattered amongst the overgrown weeds in front of a house that was in serious need of some care. The owner and his dog eventually came to greet us on the doorstep with a grunt and a blank look - still weren't absolutely convinced we were in the right place. At this point the kids were refusing to get out of the car!

A brief chat and unfortunately we were in the right place, so we stepped over more piles of junk (an old car battery on the doorstep) and into the chaos and filth of the house to be shown to our room. The dog followed us upstairs and immediately jumped on the beds. The alarm bells were ringing louder now and a pile of dusty, broken gym equipment just outside the room didn't add to the comfort levels. The beds themselves looked ok, the sheets smelled freshly laundered and we were shown how to use the aircon but the piles of dead flies by the windows, missing electrical fittings with exposed wires, bird droppings on the walls, a piece of ply wood as a cover for the toilet cistern and a curtain in a lieu of a door between the bathroom and bedroom were only a few of the things that were adding to the desire to leave. I made the mistake of touching a shelving unit in the bathroom that nearly collapsed and had to be saved by being wedged against the wall.

I can't really comment much more - we sat in the room for 20 mins finding an alternative and left as quickly as we could.