A BIG Thank you to all of you Fodorites!!
 

Months ago, I came on this message board seeking info for my trip to Europe. Sitting in my CDG hotel the night before heading back to the Bay Area, I am thankful to all who have contributed to this wonderful forum. The information obtained from this forum was and is invaluable. All of you contributors should take a bow!!!!

In 3 weeks, my wife and I drove from Paris, to Beaune, to Montreux, to Zermatt, to Santa Margherita Ligure/Cinque Tere, to St. Jean Cap Ferrat, to St. Remy de Provence, to Dommes (Dordogne Valley) and back to Paris. Hotel de la Paix in Beaune was a perfect crash pad after a long flight from SFO. Hotel Eden Palace du Lac was a bit aged but perfect location. Montreux was just OK and not a place I need to visit again. The Riffelalp Resort in Zermatt was absolutely wonderful except for the food. I really thought their 5 course meals were horrible!! Very amateurish in my opinion. The hotel itself is fantastic, however. We won't come back however..Hotel Belvedere in Grindelwald (a previous trip to Switzerland) in the Bernese Oberland was definitely much better and worth a return visit. The Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita Ligure was fabulous!! The staff was wonderful, the Free breakfast buffet was the best we encountered, and the location was primo! Santa Margherita Ligure is a great town and the short trip to Cinque Terre which was absolutely great. Cinque Terre was kind of like a team building event. We made all 5 towns in 5 hours, but each town (except Monterosso) had little to offer. It was great to complete the advanced "hike." This was nothing like the "hike the nice trails between the 5 towns" that I saw on the internet. The hike from Monterosso to Vernazza was ridiculous!! Right out of Monterosso, you have to hike straight up about (at least) 500 stairs! Nothing like the nice little trails you see on the websites. Upon completion, however, it was kind of a "high-five we made it" kind of event.

Next it was our splurge.. Staying at the Grand Hotel Cap Ferrat. Beautiful, boring and at 53euro per hamburger from room service an absolute rip off!! I don't care how rich I might be, 53 euros for a hamburger is criminal!!! $18 for a bottle of Heineken!!! 135euro for a prix-fixe meal that repeated 3 nights in a row!!! Lousy attitudes from the pool staff. Never ever, will I go to this place again!!!

St. Remy de Provence was one of our favorite stops on our European adventure and Les Ateliers de l'Image was an absolutely great hotel. What is great about this hotel is that it is in the center of St. Remy, but yet offers free parking, a wonderful pool, a park-like setting complete with hammocks, and a sushi restaurant. I could not think of a better place to stay! I saw some of the other hotels that get a great rating in St. Remy...they are outside the city. Outside the city (In my opinion..is boring!) Being in the city was wonderful. You are also only 1 block from one of the greatest wine people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Tor Vollalokken of La Cave at 13 rue de Chateau in St. Remy offers a wealth of knowledge in the wine world. His wine tastings and recommendations were fantastic!! We made it a point to visit his store all 3 nights in St. Remy. At Les Ateliers de l'Image we stayed in one of the less expensive rooms (#4). This room is in a separate building, the bar actually!! In fact, if you enter the bar, walk behind the stage and up the stairs, there is Room #4! Wake up at 4am in the morning, open your door and the bar is still open downstairs. Nobody there of course, but the bar setup is still there. Despite being located over the bar, noise was not an issue. Room 4 was like a dorm room. We liked not being near other folks staying at the hotel.

Next was supposed to be Barcelona. At our car leasing office at CDG, we met a couple from Montreal who informed us of their "misfortune" the year before in Barcelona. With their red license plate targeting them as tourists, a motorcyclist pulled up next to them at a stop light. At the next light, this same motorist pulled up next to them and told them they had a flat tire. When they pulled over to check, the motorcyclist and his buddies stole their car, clothes, and everything they owned. Upon hearing this, and not wanting to deal with driving in a big city, we changed our itinerary (based on this forum) to Dordogne Valley. We stayed at Hotel L'Esplanade (thanks to this forum again) in Dommme. This was a wonderful hotel and the restaurant their was incredible! We had the only room in the hotel with a balcony (room 15). The view of the Dordogne Valley was spectacular!!! Waking up in the morning and seeing the sun rise over the ground fog was just wonderful. Dordogne Valley was OK. We visited Domme, Sarlat, Belves and Montpezier. All were nice. After a while, all of these places start to look alike! The stores all sell the same thing, the restaurants all make the same things. Driving in this area is quite dangerous. The roadways are basically 1 1/2 cars wide with lots of blind curves. A 20 mile drive between towns could take up to 45 minutes and a lot of white knuckles!
Chateau Beynac was definitely a highlight! Montefort was also a highlight. We finished with a drive to Paris. Paris is the greatest city in the world!! This is about our 7th time here and we never get sick of it. Just something about being in this city with someone you love (my wife!!) that is just wonderful!

Once again, we thank all of you who have contributed to this wonderful forum!!!

All the best!

MasterPhil (San Francisco, CA)

Hello, I didn't help you,, but I loved your trip report and you gave me a few names of hotels etc that I may use one day,, so you helped me!! Thanks.

Same here; loved your trip report. Loved the detailed dishing on the hotels; very helpful!

Thanks for a wonderful report, We loved the l' Atelier. We walked the labyrinthe and played pool in the viewing room. Did you see the room built into a tree? thanks for the memories.

If you notice the price for room service, you can't afford it.

I hope that you were indeed punished for ordering a hamburger in such a place!

Nice report, thank you.

A trip report like yours is the sincerest "thank you" you can ever give to this forum. Sounds like you had an excellent trip!

Great trip report Masterphil. Glad you had such a good time and thanks for all the tips re: hotels.

Schnauzer

Glad you had a fine trip! Appalled at the Barcelona incident and that you didn't get there because of it.
Had to laugh about the 53-euro burger! Hard to imagine charging that much with a straight face.
Where to next???

Where to next???

Great question!!

Greece and Scandavania are the early favorites. Also, need a return trip to Ireland!

Just to clear the record...I didn't order the 53euro burger.

The first night, my wife and I went to Villefranche-sur-mer for dinner. The next night, there was a band playing to the prix-fixe 135euro crowd outside right below our balcony, so we took advantage by ordering room service. A candlelight dinner under the stars (above the awesome band). 59euro rack of lamb and 50something euro giant prawn risotto. We supplied our own wine... Crazy price, but I have to tell you, both were outrageously fantastic, especially the risotto. If you know risotto, what passes for risotto in restaurants these days is not risotto. Risotto should be creamy, not like rice-a-roni! I'll stop now...haha

Thanks again for the wonderful info!!

Just curious.. about that "red license plate" issue..
Is that because you leased and not rented a car in France? As I remember, the cars I rented (not leased) had regular French plates.
I would have assumed that with any French number plates you would be recognized as a tourist in Spain..

Red licemse plate...

We chose to lease a car (renault short-term lease). Anywhere from $1500-$2500 for 21 day lease. You get brand new car (we always get with GPS) and no liability. If it is totalled, stolen, damaged..you have zero liability. After paying a couple of hundred dollars for a BMW passenger side (electrically controlled and heated) mirror, I never wanted to rent a car in Europe again. The price for the mirror started out at $500, I negotiated down to around $300.

When you lease, you get a brand new car with a giant red license plate on it! It easily identifies you as a tourist (someone who probably has lots of luggage in the car and possibly lots of cash!)

So, you are correct. Rental cars have normal plates, leased cars have the red "bulls-eye."

Years ago, Florida rental car comnpanies had a label on their cars identifying them as rental cars. After numerous tourists got robbed (and a number of them killed). all companies removed the identifying labels from the cars. I think Europe needs to do the same thing with leased cars and red license plates!

PS..thanks for giving me something to do (respond to your post) at 3am!! My body is still adjusting to 9 hour time difference!! :)

Red plates are temporary plates.

I thought I read something on another site about the various tags from rental or leased cars. It had said that those who are "in the know" about such things are very much aware of the "numbers" used by the rental car companies. I guess they can recognize a rental vehicle no matter what.

Joan

Guy from Provence said that rentals in that area had 70 or 71 as last number.
No matter what, the bad guys always figure out a way to mess things up for the rest of us.