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Our tour of the main wine-producing areas of the Loire Valley continued with Stage 7: Saumur to Clisson (Day 9 in France). We were now based in Clisson on our first day here. We parked in the carpark at this hotel well before checking-in, using the entrance code for the automatic gates; that was provided when we had made our reservation. Parking here in the lower-town is otherwise very difficult; the carparking facility here is a major plus-point for this hotel. We had stayed here before in 2016, 2019 and 2022; so we know the hotel well. This is the best hotel in Clisson because of it’s location, comfort, quality and service. There is a lift to all floors, a small bar adjacent to both the restaurant and large terrace, area and also a pool. The beautiful view here, of the confluence of Le Sèvre Nantaise and La Moine, under the ‘Pont de Vallée’ bridge, is unequalled in Clisson, especially with the backdrop provided by Le Château de Clisson. We did not use many of the hotel’s other facilities, apart from the rooms, of course, and two good breakfasts here in the very smart restaurant. On this occasion we did not take dinner here, we usually do. With reservations already made for another visit in 2025, we are sure to weigh-up all the pros and cons of dining options, and then decide to dine here or not. We did have a lunchtime tapas meal where two of the tapas plates had not been very good; being just flavoured mashed potato balls; where the texture was just wrong. The tapas were certainly not very exciting, and did little to satisfy the taste buds. The flavour of cheese variety were slightly better than the fish flavoured variety. The other tapas plate was the best, being tempura tenderstem broccoli. After lunch we had sat a while on the sunny terrace by the river, and enjoyed a couple or three glasses of an excellent Muscadet. This was an great way to relax whilst soaking-up the sun’s warmth. The rooms were very good, sleep quality was excellent. The shower water did flood a significant area of the bathroom floor and totally soaked the bath mat. In my opinion two bath mats should be automatically provided along with fresh towels each day.

We checked into this hotel on the 15th June. We planned to stay for 4 nights during the Hellfest music festival. When we entered the room, we first noticed the flies and mosquitos all over. I have never seen so many flies anywhere before. Flying, on the ceiling, on the curtains, on the walls, and all over the windows. Impossible to count, maybe there were 100 of them. We opened the windows so that they could get out, they were mostly not moving - we optimistically thought we could sleep in the night. Then we noticed small black bugs on the bed. Again impossible to count, they were on the sheet, pillows and on the net/curtains around the bed. As this is not acceptable at all, we went to see the lady and she sent someone for vacuum cleaning, gave us a mosquito repellent and told us those bugs are normal as it’s expected to rain soon. We trusted her as she was rather kind at the moment. We then left for the festival. Keep in mind that actually we thought we shouldn’t stay here after observing the state of the room. But we had no other choice as we knew everywhere around 60km of the festival area is fully booked. When we came back to sleep, when I moved the sheets, I saw a big spider crawling on the bed! No, this is not the end, as we immediately noticed more than 10 small spiders on the sheet at the side of the bed! It probably had a nest on the wood structure of the bed. We had to kill the ones on the bed but it just didn’t stop. 2 mins later, there were 5 other small ones. And the same went on… We simply couldn’t sleep all night. Had to kill bugs all night long. Not to mention we had to kill another big spider that was crawling from the ceiling to floor, near my luggage. This was a pricier room with a terrace. It’s obvious that they didn’t take care of this room during all the off-season, nobody stayed there and they didn’t care to maintain. We left first thing in the morning, back to Nantes. We paid half price for the room for the night. In the morning when we called the owner to the room to show the spiders on the bed, she said something like 'these are small bugs, room spiders' in an angry manner and immediately left the room. Also told us that we should have slept in the car if we don't want to pay. There were also many dead bugs in their pool, absolutely not suitable and not clean enough for swimming. (When we mentioned this to the lady, she said they’re cleaning all the time constantly…)