The trouble with taking a summer holiday in August in France is that it's the French summer holiday too. Not that we saw any evidence of crowded resorts or noisy guests.
No. It was just that there seemed to be a single, preoccupied, possibly harassed, lady running the whole of the Hotel Les Arcades.
Outside on the streets of Aigues-Mortes, some sort of colourful, raucous Medieval festival was taking place (the nature or origins of which I have yet to discover for we arrived in the early evening without prior knowledge!).
The lady running the hotel (who had the distinct and unnerving look of an unapologetic stand-in) seemed to have preferred to be out carousing and jousting with her fellow knaves rather than dealing with a couple of dusty English tourists who just rolled in sweating from a hot day's crusade through the Camargue.
Which was fair enough, I suppose, but we did feel distinctly unwelcome.
Continental breakfast - included in the price - was rather insubstantial (a very English understatement, my girlfriend would say). It was served single-handedly by our same lady again, perhaps grumpy this time from the hangover of a streetparty joined too late.
- Les Arcades Aigues Mortes
