The properties are clean and comfortable in a lovely setting and within easy travelling distance of some very pretty towns and villages. The pool is maintained to a high standard and provided welcome relief from the blazing sunshine during our stay. A car is essential to make the most of your time in the region.
Why then would I tick "no" to the question " would you recommend this property to your friends?"
Simply because.........
Unfortunately, during our stay, the handle to the pool umbrella was broken by one of our party and whilst this is regrettable, it was certainly not through abuse of the equipment and accidents will happen. What I was not prepared for was the extremely aggressive manner in which I was spoken to by the owner when he ordered me to accompany him to the pool side to explain how the damage occurred.
On returning home, I queried the fact that the cost of a brand new umbrella had been deducted from our security deposit. I was able to provide photographs of the damage which very clearly indicated that there was rust in place around the winding mechanism. My query prompted a long e-mail detailing a number of "issues" that our party had caused throughout the week, these ranged from extremely petty to completely fabricated i.e glass bottles around the pool, water bombs, rubbish and lolly sticks in the pool and smoking in the gite. Whilst two of our party are smokers, they absolutely did not and would not smoke inside as our family group included two young children, there is no way that we would have compromised their safety in this way. We also cleared everything away at the end of each day throughout our stay.
The owners live in the distillery attached to the rental properties and are on- site for most of the time, following the incident with the umbrella they monitored our every move making it difficult for us to relax and enjoy the remainder of our holiday. In our experience, they seemed to have difficulty in differentiating between house guests and paying guests, the latter must be allowed to spend their holiday in the way they choose, as long as the properties are treated with respect. Surely, if you are advertising both properties together and are happy to accept the rental income that 19 people generates, you must also accept a certain level of disruption with a group of this size. There is a fine line between being attentive and intrusive, unfortunately, in our experience, the owners have yet to master the art.