The corner where you enjoy despite having a horrible vacation

BarcelonaSurely we all have memories of a vacation that didn't go quite right. A tour guide who was a disaster, a small hotel that seemed lovely but turned out to be falling apart, a missed train, a canceled plane, a stomach ache from buying food in the wrong place. And, years later, when you look back on that summer... Often you don't know how it happened, but you remember it with a laugh. If you're a person with a sense of humor, you have more options for surviving a bad vacation.

In 1953, the French laughed at a disastrous vacation, that of Monsieur Hulot, the character created by director Jacques Tati. The film was released in theaters. Mr. Hulot's Holidays, the first film in which Tati created his alter ego, this tall, inelegant, clumsy character, with a hat and a pipe. In the film, Hulot arrives in a town on the Breton coast to spend the summer in a seafront hotel and causes a revolution with his numerous blunders. The film was a success and, in fact, Tati would play the endearing Monsieur Hulot in more films, with which he would win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the Oscar in 1958 thanks to My uncle.

The town where Hulot's holiday was filmed is called Saint-Marc-sur-Mer. It was a fishing village six kilometers from Saint-Nazaire, south of the Breton coast, not far from Nantes. Officially, this area is no longer part of Brittany, as politicians in Paris decided it would be part of the Pays de la Loire region. But culturally and historically, it has always been a Breton area. A peaceful place ravaged by the war: in Saint-Nazaire, you can still visit the Nazi submarine bases.

Once peace came, people started coming for the summer. It was a quiet place and had a three-story wooden hotel, the Hôtel de la Plage. That's all it needed: you arrived by car, parked, and spent a few weeks at the hotel, half asleep on the beach, neither too hot nor too cold, as it was the Atlantic coast. You ate good fish and seafood, and when the time came, you went home. Tati discovered this corner in 1951 and understood it was the ideal location for his film, where he used humor to poke fun at how people behave when they go on vacation, overacting to seem interesting. Hotels are ideal places for sociological experiments: you encounter people trying to appear richer than they are and acting as if the other guests are staring at them.

The Hotel de la Plage still exists. A large international chain has bought it, but luckily, aside from a sign at the entrance, they've respected the old structure and simply modernized the facilities. A bronze statue of Monsieur Hulot was also placed right next to the hotel, since for decades people came here thanks to the film. Young French people don't go there anymore: they seek adventures further afield and perhaps don't know Tati. A serious mistake; you always have to return to Tati. And understand that with humor, you can better understand what surrounds you and better survive problems.

Recommendation for traveling to Brittany

Film: Mr. Hulot's Holiday

Director: Jacques Tati

Year: 1953