The hotel from last night/this morning is truly hard to explain. Must have been quite the place in the 1940's when it was built...but now very sadly neglected. We saw the owner in the common living room . An old lady who still dressed for the evening, but asleep in her chair with the TV on. We think she won't let anyone make any changes to the hotel - she wants it just the way it is/was.
A big place with 28 rooms. And YES we had to explore - we were the only ones around. We wandered long winding hallways, levels that go down and then up, small hidden stairways and more hallways off those. We kept saying (in whispers of course) that it was like a haunted hotel from some bad horror movie - remember the "Shining"? We saw one other guest in the AM, an English man who seemed to be a permanent resident.
The decorating is over the top even for its day. Dusty, sad "gigaws" - everywhere. Fake flowers - now dusty in every corner, porcelain figurines missing limbs or chipped, swan vases holding dried grasses from 15 years ago, brocade wallpaper peeling off the walls...this place could be fabulous if someone put money into it. Sadly looks at though the plumbing is bad in some areas - saw buckets to catch drips etc. and some of the floors felt "spongy" underfoot.
Can't believe we stayed there, let alone ate dinner and breakfast there as well...but we were so tired from all the driving. Dinner was pretty good with the exception of some pretty tough pastry for a leek pie.
See the photos and just imagine.
We decide the weather is iffy so we head back on the motorway and back to our home base near Hagetmau. Will go to the villages NW of Toulouse another day.
Our room had a lovely view and an old dial phone, a lamp with no cord to plug in and the most hysterical - a plastic fake deer head over one of the beds!
