I am not a person who writes reviews but I feel that I have to put pen to paper about this Gite in France.
I take no pleasure in doing this but avoid at your peril. We have been going to France for over 35 years and have stayed in many places, and this has to be the worst place we have stayed in.
We had expressed a wish that they provide the bed linen as I did not know what size the beds were so thought it would be a good idea for them to provide the same (even though we had to pay for it - again this is something we have never had to do in the past). When we arrived the beds were not made up we had to do that ourselves. There were 4 of us but we needed 3 beds and there was only linen (if you can call it that) for 2 beds. We were told that the room with the 2 single beds in were only really for children - this is not mentioned on the website that we saw the Gite on. After one of our party left (the one in the double bedroom) I decided the wash the linen and was absolutely shocked to see that there were holes all over it and it was paper thin. The linen on our bed did not match we had a green sheet and a pink duvet cover all of which was poor quality. When I asked about a washing line I was told that I could “share” hers - it was as if they had never been asked this before. We had booked a 5 week stay so obviously we would need to do washing.
As nothing seemed to match it was almost as if when it had been finished with in their property it was put into this Gite. I was always brought up that if you had guest staying (and we were guests even though paying) the guests always had the best. Everything was really poor quality. Also on the website it does not mention that you had to walk past the owners garage/workshop to go to the pool and if we had known this then we would probably not have rented the same. Also it does not state that the gite is attached to their property. The garden was not as described in the advert as it only covered part of the property. The two bedrooms that had the two single beds in and a double bed looked over their garden. Again not nice for someone who is in their bedroom to see someone passing by.
The cutlery and crockery were terrible, again everything was poor quality there were chips in a lot of things and we had to buy a lot of basic stuff. There was no kettle there and I know what you are going to say which was what we were told when I asked about a kettle - the French don’t drink tea they drink coffee - in that case why can you buy tea in France. I was asked to speak to one of the owners friends who was English and he told me that I could boil water in a saucepan on the stove - really - this is not how professional people should treat guests who have paid money to have a holiday - this Gite must have other British families and were they told the same thing. They did go out and buy a kettle but I felt it was very reluctantly. I had also brought with me a tea towel for on our journey down to wrap things in and was I pleased that I had done as the one provided was so thin and was full of hole.
The glasses were all sorts some of which were small glass jars and again nothing matched - we had to go out and buy glasses in order that we could have a proper cold drink. We had one wooden spoon and there was nothing in the knife and fork drawer that we wanted to use as it all was dirty. We had one decent size saucepan but the others were so small that you could just about boil a couple of eggs in them. The only knives that were in the drawer were steak knives and vast amounts of them.
The barbecue was a home made affair made from a car wheel, when we took off the 2 slabs of tiles it was absolutely filthy and we did not use it. It had not been cleaned from the previous however many guests, it was still full of charcoal and the grills had not been cleaned for some time - really people have paid to have the place cleaned for the next guests to arrive and we are having to do the same.
Around part of the fence around the property there was barbed wire and having been told that the single beds were only for children is this appropriate. In the utility room there are bare wires hanging from the light fitting.
I don’t know what kind of angled lens they used to take photos of the place but it is so tiny. We had to use the blue chair that is in the main bedroom and bring it into the seating area as there was not enough room for us all to sit. It is supposed to be for 6 people yet all the table inside had only 4 chairs.
There were no loungers in the garden and we could not really sit outside as all that was there was chairs at tables. We have had no comfort at all on this holiday and in fact the sofa was so uncomfortable that we have had to put a couple of duvets on it and cover it with a throw off the bed to make it a little more easy to