We had breakfast at the hotel, packed, said fond farewells to the staff and left on a long (almost 8 hours door-to-door) trip to Ange in the Loire Valley.
The hotel in Chambery – Ibis Budget Hotel Sud Chambery Challes-les-Eaux. We loved this place! Booking it was a bit of a risk. It was inexpensive – about $60 per night (the two nights were cheaper than the one night in Genoa) but it had good reviews. No elevator, but we left the suitcases in the car and just took our backpacks up one floor. The room was basic, but had everything we needed, including a table where I could blog.
The breakfast buffet was excellent – not as good as breakfast in Genoa but very, very good. And the staff was incredible. Ronald, the main guy, bent over backward to accommodate us. He even insisted that we take a bag of croissants with us when we left.
9 out of 10. If this hotel had an elevator I would have given it a 10.
I expected the road out of Chambery to be flat and boring. It was pretty flat, but not boring. We drove through a valley with rocky hills on either side. There were two tunnels. Pretty dramatic. It got boring after an hour or so.
Marlene spotted a church in a small town and we stopped to see it. We took the opportunity to buy a baguette that we munched on as we drove.
We stopped again later to do more food shopping (we had booked a place with a microwave) and to get fuel. We found yet another small church but didn’t go inside.
We got lost in minor ways several times. The worst one was, I think, the GPS’s fault. It said “take the third exit in the roundabout to D982.” Which I did. But it rerouted. Marlene, who was navigating, said I should have taken the first exit. Annoyed, I said that I distinctly heard it say “third exit.” We turned around and this time did the first exit, onto D982 the opposite direction. Again, “rerouting.” The third try was to the second exit which wasn’t even D982, but it was the correct choice. I guess the GPS is not infallible.
There were also three barricaded roads. France seems to have no compunction about simple shutting a road down for whatever reason. We found our way around each of them, but encountering a closed road can be pretty annoying.
We made it to our lodging just before 7pm. I call it “lodging” rather than hotel because it was a private home. No breakfast so I can’t call it a “bed-and-breakfast” but it had a full kitchen with stove (which we didn’t plan to use), a microwave, dishwasher, dishes and utensils and both a teapot and a single-serve coffee machine. It will suit our needs very nicely. And the cost? $66 per night.
The hosts were Michel and Didier, a very friendly married gay couple who were very proud to show us around their entire property. In addition to the “in-law” suite in the basement (which is where we would be staying) they also rented, in warm weather, several gypsy wagons in the side yard. Really an amazing place. I am pretty sure we are going to love it. And the location is convenient to the places I plan to take Marlene in the Loire Valley.