{"id":1145,"date":"2011-08-13T11:58:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-13T09:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wheresjo.com\/2011\/08\/13\/worst-western\/"},"modified":"2017-12-21T22:09:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T22:09:49","slug":"worst-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/?p=1145","title":{"rendered":"Worst Western"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 91 – Cormery to Azay-Le-Rideau<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tuesday August 2, 2011, 38 km (23 miles) – Total so far: 3,354 km (2,084 miles) <\/strong><\/p>\n

We awoke to rain. It’s crazy, we have had a few hot days in a row, then out of the middle of nowhere it rains!<\/p>\n

We packed up a wet tent and went into town for some breakfast (we were out of cereal). We grabbed a couple of quiches for now and some pain au raisins for later in the day. As we sat by the river eating our breakfast, a couple of english speaking cyclists (with no luggage) looked a bit lost, so we gave them directions to the cycle route.<\/p>\n

We also decided to follow the cycle route rather than the main roads. It was a but further but it was nicer riding. We caught up with the english speaking cyclists we met earlier. “Where are you guys from?” I asked as I overtook one of them with my fully loaded bike (I just had to point that out!). “New Zealand” she replied. “Cool me too”.<\/p>\n

dscn2261.JPG<\/a><\/p>\n

They are the first kiwis we have met on the trip. They were doing a weeks ride, but someone else was carrying their luggage and they were staying in hotels. That’s cheating.<\/p>\n

There were some houses built into the hills on the route.<\/p>\n

dscn2263.JPG<\/a><\/p>\n

It rained on and off all day so we decided a hotel would be the way to go. We noticed there was a Best Western in Azay-Le-Rideau so we decided to navigate to there, and coincidentally, that’s the way the cycle path would take us.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the Best Western soaking wet. We asked to view the room, but the lady told us we weren’t allowed to view the room first due to security practices. This seemed odd, as we have never been refused to view a room. She assured us it was a lovely room with a double bed and shower. This triggered alarm bells, but I chose to believe her as the standards of
\nBest Westerns has been really good in France.<\/p>\n

So we checked in and the room was tiny. The bathroom also was tiny. We have stayed in better 1 star hotels. We felt we had been conned into taking the room – but it was wet outside, we were tired, the stupid lady on reception could not speak English – so we left it at that.<\/p>\n

The more I thought about it, the more I believe we were conned and I started getting really pissed off about it. So I emailed a note of complaint to Best Western (using the Best Western internet).<\/p>\n

Azay-Le-Rideau was really touristy and we couldn’t figure out why. We had been to far nicer towns with far less people. There is a chateaux here but big deal – there are chateaux everywhere.<\/p>\n

All the restaurants were really touristy too and I didn’t like the look of any of them. Then Mike noticed a little restaurant tucked away down a side street. It was awesome. We had a really nice meal and it made up for the fact we were ripped off with our accommodation.<\/p>\n

*** Update 13\/08 ***<\/p>\n

I got an email back from Best Western today (13\/08) offering us a 50 euro Best Western voucher for use worldwide and it never expires. We were well pleased about that. So that 66 euro crappy hotel only cost us 16 euros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 91 – Cormery to Azay-Le-Rideau Tuesday August 2, 2011, 38 km (23 miles) – Total so far: 3,354 km (2,084 miles) We awoke to rain. It’s crazy, we have had a few hot days in a row, then out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7qMoz-it","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1333,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wheresjo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}