French Letter: Motorhomes are squeezing the life out of French hotels

I like hotels. I’ve always liked hotels. Some are awful, and many that are no more than serviceable. But a good hotel is a jewel, and a great one is a national treasure.

Back in 1974, when I was first sent by the Irish Times to cover the European Parliament in Strasbourg, I was booked into the Grand Hotel on the Place de la Gare. Taken in by the name, I expected to be met by a doorman in a top hat and tailcoat. But he must have had the week off because he never showed. I was not, however, disappointed by the hotel, which seemed so much more glamorous to me than anything I had previously experienced. Perhaps it was because the staff spoke French and called me “Monsieur”. 

Over the next ten years, the Grand became something of a home-from-home, not only when I was reporting back to Dublin, but later, when I covered the parliament each month for the Financial Times. Today, 47 years on, I can still recall the simple elegance of the reception area; its main feature was an all-glass lift that took me soaring up to my second-floor room like a slow-moving rocket. 

The Grand today is much grander than it was. It seems to have swallowed up its neighbours. Whether it is any better, I have no idea. 

Since then, I must have stayed in a hundred or more French hotels, several of the grand-luxe type, but most of them small, more modest establishments tucked away in the back streets of towns and cities. 

They can be infuriating but are rarely dull. Sometimes they are a delight. I’m thinking of one hotel my wife and I found, just as the light was fading, in Aquitaine, south of Bordeaux, which looked like a car showroom from the outside but turned out to have a well-stocked bar and a first-class restaurant. It is now on our itinerary any time we head to the South West or Spain, just as La Garissade in the bastide country north of Cahor always figures on our way to and from Provence. 

This summer, in Arles, with the temperature above 30 degrees celsius, the hotel we had booked more or less at random proved admirably clean, cool and comfortable, five minutes from the Rhône and a short walk from the Roman amphitheatre. It came in at less than half the price of the celebrated Nord Pinus, the choice of Eva Garner, Churchill, Edith Piaf, Yves Montand and Picasso, though not of Van Gogh, whose paintings of the surrounding scene never earned him a penny. 

The owners of our pension, relaxed and helpful, in no hurry to do anything in particular, were usually to be found either propping up the front door or on their computer in a back-room next to the reception desk. For all I know, they have been there since the hotel opened sometime in the nineteenth century. 

In Paris, we used to rent apartments for a month or two months at a time, until, with the onset of Airbnb, they became too expensive and too unreliable. We switched to shorter stays in small hotels in Montparnasse, either in the Rue d’Odessa or in the nearby Rue de la Gaieté, both of which gave us instant access to a variety of bars and restaurants and the street life that makes Paris after dark an unfailingly magical experience. 

What puzzles me is that so many people these days, not just Brits, but Dutch, Germans, Belgians and, not least, the French themselves, have given up on hotels in favour of camping cars,­ known here as mobeel ‘omes. They are everywhere. The pleasure of taking smaller roads – routes nationales or départementales ­– avoiding the motorways, is frequently spoiled when you get stuck behind a camper van or, worse, several in a row, forming a convoy, shuffling along at a steady 60 kph. 

Owners of these behemoths tell me that the joy lies in the freedom of the open road they provide, freeing them from having to worry about where they’re going to stay that night or where they will end up eating. They load up their onboard fridges, freezers and storage cupboards with everything needed for a two or three-week stay. At night, they park up in sites located for them by an app on their mobile phone, plugging into the grid and sewage system before firing up their barbeques and selecting the night’s viewing on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Like being home and away at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I haven’t been tempted. I have. But even if it wasn’t for the cost involved – prices for a new “van” start at around £40,000 – there is the self-isolation aspect to consider. Being “in-control” is one thing – a bit like Brexit – but never having to deal with the natives and taking your home with you everywhere you go is, frankly, not for me. 

I prefer the serendipity of hotel life, not to mention being able to flop down after a long day in a clean room, onto a freshly-made bed and a view out the window of the place you are there to see. It is as if, even if only for a night, you are part of a living community. 

French hoteliers, hit by Covid and Airbnb, are having it hard enough this year without having to watch the passing cavalcade of hermetically-sealed motorhomes full of holidaymakers who, for the most part, only want to take a swim, grab a beer, move on and watch tv.

Am I old-fashioned? No question. I like to be in the heart of the town or city I’m visiting, even if parking the car has become a recurring nightmare. It feels real to me, connecting me to my childhood and to the long years of my career as an itinerant journalist when hotels were an everyday fact of life, full of possibilities. 

If only the cleaning staff understood that when I say we don’t wish to be disturbed, I don’t mean that they don’t have to make the bed or provide fresh towels until sometime in the middle of the afternoon.