We were very excited about this stay. The property looks exactly like the photos and the view is sublime but there are some issues one needs to be aware of. Firstly, there is no mention of the difficult access. To reach the property you have to do a hard right turn behind a building, with a stone wall directly opposite it, which involves a 3 point turn on steep slope, even for little cars, then travel down a dirt track 200 metres, which is extremely narrow and follows a rock face with rocks sticking out of it. On the other side is a sheer drop off into an olive grove, so it is extremely difficult to get down it if you have a big car. We had a Mercedes E class sedan, which barely made it and we did not feel confident doing it in the dark, say after dinner. We ended up having to leave the car at the end of the road in scrubland as there is no legal parking available nearby and walk back and forth, which was inconvenient and difficult on the rocky road, but manageable and the only solution we could come up with.
The other issue is that tradespeople turn up unannounced and just let themselves in the back gate of the garage/garden/pool area with the electric door opener without coming and knocking on the front door. It seems everyone has keys to the place so your valuables may not be protected. We had the gardener do that whilst we were using the pool. If you had your bikini top off, you would get a surprise. So, he stayed for more than 4 hours and mowed the lawn etc, which was noisy, so it was a big disturbance to our privacy and enjoyment of the place for the entire afternoon, which we had not been informed about prior. He wanted to come back another day with a big tractor to trim the trees but we didn't want that, so we asked him to do that when we had left. The same thing happened when the handyman turned up to clean the pool, which happened in the afternoon, which seemed bad planning, as that is when guests would be likely to be using the pool, which we were but of course, then couldn't. This activity would have been better done on changeover day or first thing in the morning before guests were up.
Finally we had a lightening strike nearby on our first night, which is unpredictable but which knocked out all the electrics, the satellite dish for the TV, the internet router and the motor for the retractable pool cover. The houses electrics seem to have no earth, so whenever there is a thunderstorm the lights usually go out but this one was bad because it blew all the main facilities of the house out as well. The housekeeper came to help but does not speak English at all so if you do not understand French it is difficult to find things such as switch boxes. Though they responded quickly, the owners live in Luxembourg and it happened on the weekend and then followed by a public holiday Monday. Consequently, we had no use of the facilities for some time. The internet was fixed in 2 days, the TV in 4 as was the pool cover physically removed so we could at least use the pool, but at least 4 days of our stay had been ruined. We spent those 4 days waiting for tradespeople to turn up to fix things. We found out that they were all scheduled in to fix even little things like lights out, because the owners were turning up the following week and wanted everything done right for them without their inconvenience.
We discussed compensation with the owner and she offered us a free week in 2018 or 2019 in May, which we declined as we come from Australia and travelling to France again then was not particularly practical or in our plans. We asked for a partial refund instead and a refund of the cleaning fee, but she went to the insurance company and as they do not cover this they are unwilling to offer any compensation for the 4 days of our stay that was ruined. We got a partial refund of the final cleaning fee, but I don't think that is acceptable given the interruption to our holiday. If it was my property I would have taken care of the clients first and then sought reimbursement from insurance and if not accept that it is a cost of doing business, sometimes things go wrong, but they didn't see it that way and just want to keep all the money, which we think is unfair given the circumstances.
If everything was ok with our stay, we would probably recommend it but only if you had a little car and you were aware and happy that people will arrive in the backyard unannounced several times during your stay. Based on our experience we would not. We would expect that work around the place would be done on changeover day. For the price of the rental, the bad access and lack of privacy and security means your enjoyment is compromised for at least some of the time and at this price point I do not think you can have these things happen. So you would hope nothing goes wrong because you are in a bad situation if it does. There are many other beautiful villas without these issues in the area, which we will visit in future.
