Go Back  Fodor's Travel Talk Forums > Destinations > Europe
Reload this Page >

Where Can I Find the WORST...

Search

Where Can I Find the WORST...

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 12:10 PM
  #1  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 78,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Where Can I Find the WORST...

Worst Wurst in Germany?

Worst Cheese in France?

Worst Restaurant in Paris?
Many come here asking for the 'BEST' say baguette in Paris - never asking for just some great ones but the 'BEST" - only the BEST - well I'm a bit different like I like the WORST say Foie Gras in France (actually any foie gras leaves a bad bad taste in my mouth even though I've never eaten any and never would)

Worst pizza in Italy?

Worst beer in Belgium?

Worst Fish and Chips in England?

Worst Fried Mars Bars in Glasgow?

Worst High Tea in London?

Worst whiskey in Scotland?

The Worst Train Station in Europe?

Worst Hotel in Europe?

Worst Sacher Torte in Vienna?

and any other Worsts you care to mention.
PalenQ is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 12:43 PM
  #2  
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 19,399
Received 79 Likes on 8 Posts
<i>Worst Fried Mars Bars in Glasgow?</i>

Oxymoron. "Worst" and "fried Mars bar" cannot be in the same sentence.

<i>Worst whiskey in Scotland?</i>

Anywhere that they spell it that way.

<i>The Worst Train Station in Europe?</i>

Katowice, Poland, 1975. Second place, (East) Berlin Ostbahnhof, same time. Patience, comrades.
Gardyloo is online now  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 12:54 PM
  #3  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 7,959
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Worst Restaurant in Paris?

The one where I ordered duck and spent the entire next day throwing up.

Worst pizza in Italy?

The place next to the middle school in my town. Cardboard crust, toppings from a tin.

Worst Hotel in Europe?

Even the worst I've seen can't touch some of the bad hotels I've stayed at in the US. I think the worst was a back-packer hotel in London where I stayed in my impecunious youth. I can't remember the name. There was evidence that some of the doors had been forced in the past, and then reinforced.

Worst train station in Europe?

Not having been to all of them, I would venture to guess... Bologna?
bvlenci is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 12:58 PM
  #4  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,476
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Here is a review that I saved from the Hotel Cloche in Geneva. It was about 10 years ago.

During the last renovation of the Hotel Cloche in 1897, they decided to exclude anything that resembled an amenity. The room, which is tiny, is its best feature. The mattress was either slate or shale, I am not sure which, and the sheets were starchy. The pillow was smaller than a beignet but not as puffy.

The floor was covered with odd colored spongy diamonds things, usually found in outdoor playgrounds to protect the heads and bones of children. There was a television and a remote but it must have been one of those cardboard display units displayed at the furniture stores, since neither worked.

Did I mention that the hotel lied and said they had an elevator and that luggage is not easy to drag up a spiral marble staircase?

The bathroom was so tiny that it was used to train astronauts, so they would be prepared under the most confined of circumstances. One can multi-task while seated. The shower head needed to hand held which did not allow for singing into my soap microphone. Did I mention that this place was recommended by Frommer’s?

The clerk/owner attempted to be gracious but with his Inspector Clouseau accent I expected him to send us to the zoo to see the minkeys. Instead, he suggested we visit the Red Cross museum, but the donation at the door was a
pint of blood.

A heat wave attacked Geneva thus we had to leave the window open which was not too bad if were not for the Grand Casino across the street and a major thoroughfare a block away. Hotel Cloche has the type of charm that would attract, Reinfield, Dracula’s assistant.
IMDonehere is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 01:20 PM
  #5  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 78,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Hotel Cloche - "Bell" Hotel - sounds like it is one of the better ones than I've stayed in - some real dives.
PalenQ is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 01:31 PM
  #6  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,476
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The worst hotel we actually stayed in was La Perla in 1972 in Salamanca. It was so bad I remember it over 40 years later.

He had to hold the sheets away from our body and their was a shared bathroom. There was one light that barely lit the room and we were afraid to go in the middle of the night as to what we might find. That is what happens when you travel with little money.

I just checked on TA and think it still exists and has not improved.
IMDonehere is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 02:23 PM
  #7  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 7,959
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
If we're going back that far, I could mention a place in Segovia, perhaps not exactly a hotel, whose name I don't remember. You had to walk across the roof of the adjacent building to get to the entrance. The door of the room locked only from the outside. When you sat on the toilet something dripped on your head.
bvlenci is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 02:34 PM
  #8  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 78,320
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Ah the WORST toilet could bring a lot of responses from me and others- the worst I remember was one of those holes in the floor or enamel base with two raised parts for your feet while you squat - a squat toilet - well in Orvieto's train station I just got off the train and nature called so so bad all of a sudden and I open the WC door and oops - sxxt all over the only toilet in there plus TP, etc - could not even see the hole - that one I refused to use.

A French girlfriend I stayed with for a few days had an even worse one - though clean - she lived on the top floor of a tall flat in Lyon and there was just two holes in wood - like our American outhouses and you let lose and it all dropped down to the bottom of the building with stuff from other toilets on each floor - I thought I was in India (which would have considered the Orvieto WC to be one of the better ones - I remember staying in a seaside hut in Goa and asked about the WC and the owner pointed to the sea and that's where everyone went - the same place many swam!)
PalenQ is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 03:09 PM
  #9  
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 12,017
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
OK PalenQ, did you start this thread just so you could tell your Paris toilet story? It wins! It really must because I can't imagine anything topping it. However, one thing isn't clear. You must fix this because I really want to believe your story! LOL

If your toilet at the top of the building hovered over the others below, how did that work? Did every apartment have its own separate chute? ��
If so, a lot of space on the ground floor would have been taken up by all the chutes from above.

My own worst pales in comparison, but the waffles Belgium is famous for were horrible and inedible in Bruges.

In our younger days, we stayed at so many wretched hotels, I shudder to bring them back to memory.
Sassafrass is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 04:23 PM
  #10  
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 57,890
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Worst Sacher Torte in Vienna is at the Sacher hotel - there is no way this thing could possibly be any worse.
nytraveler is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 04:31 PM
  #11  
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 57,890
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Worst hotel in Paris - sorry I no longer remember the name - was a "student" lodging that cost $6 per night (on my first trip 40 years ago). My boyfriend said it would be fine and it was late so I agreed.

They said there was a shower in the room and there was - a tin box in a corner of a small incredibly dusty, dingy room. But the toilet was not down the hall but on the floor below. When I went to use it is was occupied by a couple apparently engaged in using recreational pharmaceuticals. So I left. Later I sent my BF downstairs to check it out before I would go in - and he did indeed find drug paraphernalia - that he had to clean away.

I slept in my clothes/raincoat on top of the bedspread and first thing in the am we moved to the Hilton where I immediately took a shower and washed my hair. I also put my raincoat in a plastic laundry bag, sealed it and left in m suitcase for the remainder of the trip. (I was taking no more chances on his choices of hotel in Paris.)
nytraveler is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 04:33 PM
  #12  
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 10,290
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes on 1 Post
I remember the Eden Hotel in Naples, back in '71. Communal mens' room down the hall, full of drunks puking all night. Drain in the room sink plugged, reading Camus' The Plague . . .

Looks like its three star these days, TA seems to think it's OK. Guess they renovated.

Then there was the B&B in Newcastle, same year. Moldy bathroom, drunk roomie whose wife had thrown him out . . .
Fra_Diavolo is online now  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 04:35 PM
  #13  
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 12,163
Received 26 Likes on 4 Posts
My worst Paris toilet, the year 1966, location outside my dressing room at the Casino de Paris. Yes, porcelain squat variety with a tank and pull chain above. Before pulling said chain we prepared to jump back as, otherwise, we'd get a simultaneous flush & shower. Quite a surprise the first time.
MmePerdu is online now  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 05:30 PM
  #14  
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 4,591
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The worst palmier in Paris is at the bakery on rue St Louis en l'ile. Stale, burnt and sold by a not so nice man.
denisea is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 06:59 PM
  #15  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,476
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The first time we stayed with wife's family in Spain on their farm, they had no running water and one electric light. The toilet was a porcelain hole. I was relieving myself, when I saw huge tongue appear in the hole, it was from one of the cows sharing the first floor with us.
IMDonehere is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 07:17 PM
  #16  
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 10,290
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes on 1 Post
IMD wins.
Fra_Diavolo is online now  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 07:33 PM
  #17  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,476
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I finally won something on Fodor's. I am sure there will be those will file a protest.
IMDonehere is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 09:22 PM
  #18  
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 8,827
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No! It's all yours. But why were the cows on the 1st floor (2nd floor US)? You must have been in Galicia or Asturas.
Robert2533 is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 09:31 PM
  #19  
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 12,017
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I had already declared PalenQ the winner, but IMD topped him. You guys have had some real experiences.
Sassafrass is offline  
Old Apr 7th, 2016, 10:00 PM
  #20  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 6,476
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
It was in Galicia. The cows, the chickens, the pigs, and the porcelain hole were all on the ground floor as was the kitchen which still has wood burning stove. We slept upstairs and it was December, there was a layer of ice on the water in the ewer in the morning.

They had a dairy farm that they ran with water from a hand cranked well. They made flan in old tuna cans.

Things changed dramatically under the socialists and they advanced 400 years in 30. Our young cousin recently sold the animals as the older cousins can no longer tend to the arduous and constant work of keeping cows. But he has kept the house.

It was a very different experience for a kid from Brooklyn who grew up in an apartment house with eight lanes of traffic under his window. It was wondrous and the family is warm and accepting and I always look forward to returning as we will this September.
IMDonehere is offline  


Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information -