We stayed a total of three nights at the Mont Segur Hotel (named after the famous Cathar stronghold a couple of hours distant) because we needed local accommodation before and after a family boat trip on the Canal du Midi. The rooms we used were fair enough, I suppose, for a French three star hotel. However, the hotel suffers from a complete lack of facilities other than a couple of cramped rooms where an overpriced petit dejeuner is served. The same can be got across the road for a third of the price. Most of the staff were helpful though some seemed to be local kids doing summer jobs. I'm all for kids doing summer jobs; but not in reception. Others of the staff were downright unpleasant. Checkout time is 11 AM. Around 9.30 as we were going out for breakfast the housekeeper made it abundantly and rudely clear she wanted us out there and then. In one fell swoop she managed to alienate a party of nine.

The hotel owners also have a restaurant a hundred or so yards down the road. On arrival at the hotel the receptionist immediately offers to book guests into the Restaurant Languedoc. The food is quite good, offering a wide choice across three menu price ranges. But the service is truly awful. The kindest adjective to descibe the manageress' attitude would be "supercilious". The first time we went there before the boat trip we had to ask several times for our glasses to be refilled from an ice bucket several paces away from our table. In the end we were completely ignored. Having paid the bill my wife pointedly, went to ice bucket and lifted out the bottle containing the equivalent of two glasses of wine. This belated protest was met with an icy glare.

Nevertheless, we gave it another shot at the end of the boat trip. There are no decent restaurants in that end of town that we could see anyway. If I thought the unfriendly attitude of the previous occasion was just someone having a bad night I was wrong. The icy superciliousness was there with a vengeance when we came back a week later.