Archival
6/10 Okay
Jane M.
1 April 2016
Beautiful place with some major issues
We were a large group who rented this property from Catalonia Holiday Rentals, who, frankly, were terrible to deal with. The owners, who live locally, were wonderful and if I were them, I'd think twice before continuing with the booking agency. Our first issue with them was that they told us we could not check in until 7PM, which is absolutely ridiculous. We have rented in many, many places before and 4PM is the latest we have checked in anywhere. After many torturous e-mails, they told us we could check in at 4PM. This would not normally be that much of an issue, but we have a bunch of children in our party and 7Pm is bed time for the young ones.The house is lovely, lovely, lovely and the en suite bathrooms are a huge plus for this house. One of them had a super slow drain and we were throwing towels on the floor to divert the water back into the shower. Not optimum, but we dealt with it. The inside kitchen is adequate, but could be much better. There were no linens or tea towels provided to us so we bought our own. That's ridiculous in a place of this type. There also was nowhere to store our food so we had it allover the place.Note to anyone with children: This place is loaded with steps, which is normally not a problem, but these are often uneven and dangerous. No one's fault as the house is really old, but it might be an issue with some. There was a huge flood due to the washer overflowing, but the owners (who were super nice) came and handled it immediately. We also had problems with the electric cutting out which they handled as well. We first called the Catalonia Holiday Lettings as they were the one taking the commission, but they were seriously lacking in terms of responsiveness. Another issue was that one night, three bats flew in one of the open bedroom windows causing absolute mayhem in the wee hours of the morning. Most of the windows have decorative iron bars which impeded the bats from entering the room, but this one did not. The absolute best part of the house is the outdoor space, which is spectacular. We spent all of our waking hours out there, cooking, swimming, eating, playing games and drinking wine. It was wonderful. There's an entire kitchen with gas burners, a sink, a dishwasher, a fridge and a great propane fired paella set-up. We LOVED it! As I said, the house is lovely, but there are some issues which should be addressed. Also, when renting it, be aware that it is thirty long minutes on a bendy road to the nearest town.