Chateau du Clos de la Ribaudiere

A gem of an Hotel. Excellent kitchen and very professional waiting team. Good to see electric car charging, needs more. Needs better policing of cars parked but not charging.

This is a great looking place, albeit tucked away in the back end of a village so somewhat tricky to find. It certainly has an above-average ambience, as does the food. I've never seen cheese carved before! The only thing that spoiled the experience was my room. I was shocked to find it had no windows, just a Velux roof window that you couldn't open because it was out of reach. As a result the room felt claustrophobic. The bathroom, whilst well fitted, had no ventilation at all. Forget any views. The closest you can get to fresh air in this room is a wall-mounted a/c unit, and that proved far too noisy to sleep with. I asked Reception if I could change to another room. No luck. 'You were told there was no window in the booking' she said. No I hadn't. I asked why there wasn't a pole to operate the roof window; she just shrugged. Later on I put a chair on the bed, climbed up the wobbly structure and opened the window. Fresh air at last! (There would originally have been a pole to operate the window; it got lost or broken and never replaced. For the sake of a pole and some initiative they lose two stars). Actually there was another thing, a rather rude waitress. When our main courses arrived, one of my party asked the waiter if there were vegetables (expecting a side dish as the menu mentioned vegetables). A nearby manager overheard, came across, jabbed a finger at the food and said curtly 'There are vegetables there'. Inspired by Basil Fawlty perhaps, but a rude moment in what was otherwise a very pleasant evening.