BP Service Station
Aire de Chateauvillain Sur Orge
Chateauvillain
A5
France.
Where is it?
Go through the main front doors of the service station. There are a host of drinks machines to the left and the shop and payment area to the right. Go straight between them, down the corridor, and turn left.
What’s it like?
When it comes down to it the weakest link in a machine is always the human being. My car can do up to 600 miles on a tank of diesel, that’s at least 6 hours in the car (on the unlimited autobahn I’d have to add if you were doing the math). I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait that long to pee. This is why we all have to stop at a service station now and again.
Actually, it was the need to take on fluid on a afternoon drive from Cannes to Calais that called for this stop at the BP station on the A5 at Chateauvillain. To be sure the shop is fine, the staff are friendly – and the Orange Coke on sale caught our eye – but then, just before departing, I decided I’d better take advantage of the facilities.
This is where things went downhill. In need of a refurbishment is an understatement. It is now unusual to find graffiti strewn over toilet doors, as well as the general state of disrepair and neglect that this place had. Fixtures with gaping holes around them, holes where fixtures had faced impromptu removal filled with chewing gum, and a particularly dirty toilet bowl left me wishing that I had waited for the next stop en route.
Nevertheless, you’d have to say the staff do clean the place. It raised more than some comment from my fellow travellers – my French is not so good so I can only speculate on what was being said – when a woman employee came in unannounced and proceeded to clean. More than one eyebrow was raised, indeed. And did I actually see a Frenchman embarrassed in front of a woman?
Marks out of 10:
2. BP need to pay for a refurb here
Comments to the management:
Invest some money and fix things quicker. I’ll let you off the invasion – the joy of seeing embarrassed Frenchmen…
1 comment:
that looks pretty nice compared to all of the reststop bathrooms I know! The toilet even had a SEAT!
And, I'm betting the 'embarrassed frenchman' wasn't French!
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