Tourist sleeps in hôtel de ville
Mix-up sees British woman with limited French spend the night in a town hall after getting locked in
A BRITISH tourist spent a night locked inside a town hall after she mistook the hôtel de ville for a hotel.
The woman, aged in her thirties, who has not been named, was travelling alone in Alsace and was looking for a place to stay in the small town of Dannemarie in the Haut-Rhin.
She saw a sign for the hôtel de ville and walked inside. While she was visiting the toilet, a meeting taking place in the building came to an end and it was locked up for the night.
Discovering she was trapped, the tourist switched on all the lights in the building to attract attention.
She attached a note to the front door, written in broken French, that read: "22.08.2009 Je suis fermer ici. Est ce possible la porte en ouvrir?"
A woman heading to work the following morning saw the sign on the front door and alerted the mayor, who came to free her.
Dannemarie mayor Paul Mumbach said: "She asked me where I could find a hotel. I showed her where the nearest one was and she left, sheepishly."
Mr Mumbach said he was considering translating the town's municipal signs into English and German to avoid any further incidents.
Photo: Mairie de Dannemarie
