Oh no!

For the first time our last minute hotel booking system failed. We turned up in a picturesque town just outside of Bordeaux and the hotel didn't have a booking for us. We had found the Logis de France site very good for booking small, inexpensive hotels. This time the message got lost somehow, no worries but also nowhere to stay the night. We pressed on to Bordeaux and found a Formulae 1 hotel. Part of the Accor group the F1's are a very cheap place to stay and very easy to find. The rooms sleep three so are good for families. Well that was who used them on our last trip, now they seem to be mostly used by men of the traveling variety, truck drivers, salesmen etc. The three woman I spotted were well outnumbered.

The main problem with F1 is that the loos and showers are those self washing communal ones down the hall. I had had a bad experience in a small town with those types of loos on the last trip, door came open a bit soon then wouldn't when I needed it to. Think I might have slammed it a bit hard? I had also had an interesting experience with a Frenchman the last time I'd stayed in an F1. Wish he'd put the towel, the very small towel, around his waist on the way to the shower and not over his shoulder. The look he gave me was full of promise......his advertising might have been better suited to the audience. 

The good thing about F1 is that there is breakfast. This one also had a cheap restaurant nearby with some excellent wine on their list. With Muzz not drinking, I had to polish of the carafe by myself. Back in the room, on goes the telly to drown out the man next doors telly and who should be there large as life but the All Blacks. I'm no good at watching telly in bed, after wine I'm worse, so off to sleep I went with mutters in my ear of 'aw ref, we watching the same game' and 'they're in our backline ya plonker' as Muzz got his rugby fix.