We found our apartment in Le Mans easily and all was going great until I opened the lock box where the key was meant to be and it was empty! I frantically called, texted, WhatsApp’ed and emailed the owner for half an hour, to no avail. It was quite hot (not Montpellier standards, but still hot by our standards) and as usual we all needed a wee and a cold drink. Being a Sunday afternoon though, not a lot was open but we found a pub/restaurant that was and it had chargers nearby so we headed there. The owner eventually answered my call and once we’d overcome the language barrier, he realised that the last guests hadn’t returned the key when they left. He wasn’t in town, but kindly agreed for me to retrieve the key to his own apartment and from there he’d talk me through finding a spare key for ours. Problem solved, and by the time we’d got back to the house, he’d messaged to say someone had got the missing key back and replaced it in the lock box. Phew! We’d been looking forward to staying in this apartment in a listed building dating from 1747, so we were glad to finally get in.
We were all quite hungry as we hadn’t really stopped for lunch on today’s journey, so rather than trekking round the city in search of a restaurant that was open and suitable, we headed back to the pub that had been our salvation earlier. Everyone else must’ve had the same idea though, we queued to get in and eventually one of the staff came and spoke to the people at the front of the queue and at that point everyone turned around and headed out, our translation skills told us that meant there was a long wait for tables so we headed to Buffalo Grills a couple of minutes away.
フランスLes Maillets48°0’44” N 0°12’2” E
フランスLes Maillets48°0’44” N 0°12’2” E