La Villette Hotel

For its price range, this is a brilliant hotel. Good clean rooms, comfortable beds, together with excellent facilities, including a top-notch indoor swimming pool, health spa and leisure centre. There is also an outdoor pool, but that was closed for the winter when I arrived. Of course, a hotel’s reputation depends equally as much on its staff, and the vast majority of those employed here went out of their way to make my week memorable for all the right reasons. With apologies to the guys who in their own way were equally as good, a special mention however must go to Clara, Jessica, and Junalyn, whose charming personalities and dazzling smiles always brightened this old bloke’s day. Oh yes, I did have one rather unfortunate incident worth writing about, but that was entirely my own fault. Having stayed far too long in the poolside steam room (close to an hour, I think) when I stood up to leave I lost all balance and was instantly nauseous. According to others there who came quicky to my aid, I was a vivid shade of tomato red all over. The initial answer was to sit me on the steps leading into the pool and keep throwing water over me. Now being able to look back and laugh about it, it was in a way a bit like being baptised over and over again. And it certainly worked to a degree. Hotel manager Ian and several of his staff were quickly on the scene as well, their concern such that Ian arranged a doctor’s appointment for me within the hour. Although driven to the St Martin Health Centre by Graham (a Guernsey local who subsequently became a very good friend) Ian came along too. And when I emptied the contents of my stomach into a plastic bucket halfway to the surgery, he even disposed of the bucket’s contents for me on arrival. Now that’s what I call going way over and beyond the call of duty. In conclusion, even though it must have been very close to the end of her evening shift, Dr Newman was equally brilliant, taking all the time needed to ensure that I was by this time pretty much over the worst. Thanks to the NHS, it didn’t cost me a penny, either.