I’ve decided that once a week I’ll re-post something from my extensive archives. Obviously many of my early posts 2009 – 2012 heavily feature cycling. I’ll try to keep these to a minimum as I know not everyone is a cycling fan. This one’s about skiing from March 2015 and is the second part of this morning’s post.

A week ago we had just returned from a week’s vacation where –  and I only have myself to blame –  I allowed my beloved to choose the hotel. In the many, many years we’ve been married I’ve allowed him to book hotels only twice before, neither of which was an unqualified success. It’s just not one of his competencies. He’s blinded by the pretty photographs and forgets to check the small print.

The hotel wasn’t a total disaster but we won’t be returning. On the positive side, it was in a fabulous location, the rooms were spacious with south-facing balconies and it was a small family run affair. Usually a bell weather, but not this time. Mein hosts, along with their overly fussy totally coordinated decor and menus, were firmly stuck in the last century. They pitch their offering very much at the German retiree market, a segment with plenty of spending power and a desire to return year after year after year.

The hotel claimed to have WiFi throughout but I soon discovered that the service worked intermittently in the bedrooms. Four of us on the hotel’s second floor had iPhones and iPads and, a bit like the Germans and their towels, you had to get up early to hog access the limited bandwidth.

Non fully functioning WiFi is one of my pet peeves and the hotel will get marked down on my booking.com evaluation. And, while we’re on the subject of complaints, I’d also like to confiscate the chef’s mandolin, the use of which was willful and without reason. Marcus Waring wouldn’t have approved either! Chef also liked decorating the plates with little dots of balsamic vinegar which added nothing to our enjoyment of the dish and, another cardinal sin, painting stripes of stuff across the plates. I dare say that Mein hosts thought this the height of fine dining, but they’re wrong, it is not.

Frau Host had a firm grip on the book “The Art of Folding Serviettes.”  Every evening they were arranged in a different fashion and the table decorated with what I can only describe as knickknacks – so NOT necessary! Plain white linen table cloths and neatly folded serviettes please. The Saturday before we left was St Valentines Day and they went totally overboard.

As I waited to check out, Herr Host was having a long conversation with a couple of regulars taking their leave. I swear that he clicked his heels together smartly and inclined his head as he shook their hands and bade them farewell for another year. I was not accorded the same courtesy. I sensed he knew I would not be returning. I half expected the bill to be laminated much like my “yellow card.”

I had committed the cardinal sin of omitting to fill in the registration card which was hidden among the pile of brochures in the bedroom. In truth, he’d run pretty much amok with the laminating machine and I suspect his wife bought him it for Christmas. Probably, the same year he bought her the book on how to fold serviettes.