Petit Nieulle, Nieulle-sur-Seudre, France

Located in a small village just outside La Rochelle on the west coast of France, this cottage is a lovely base for your holiday.

The cottage is actually located in a village called Nieulle Sur Seudre in the Charente region. The village is very small but without a satnav the cottage would have been rather difficult to find, as the instructions for the final few miles were very basic.

However, once you've navigated the small ...
...surprise. It seemed to us that it may once have been two separate cottages that have been joined together, as not only are there 6 bedrooms in the cottage, but there is a studio flat attached where the key holders can be found.

As just mentioned there are 6 bedrooms, one of the three downstairs bedrooms has an en-suite shower room as well. There is also a separate shower and toilet downstairs, and upstairs there are the other 3 bedrooms ... more

Located in a small village just outside La Rochelle on the west coast of France, this cottage is a lovely base for your holiday.

The cottage is actually located in a village called Nieulle Sur Seudre in the Charente region. The village is very small but without a satnav the cottage would have been rather difficult to find, as the instructions for the final few miles were very basic.

However, once you've navigated the small roads of the village the cottage is a very pleasant surprise. It seemed to us that it may once have been two separate cottages that have been joined together, as not only are there 6 bedrooms in the cottage, but there is a studio flat attached where the key holders can be found.

As just mentioned there are 6 bedrooms, one of the three downstairs bedrooms has an en-suite shower room as well. There is also a separate shower and toilet downstairs, and upstairs there are the other 3 bedrooms and a separate shower and toilet. All the bedrooms downstairs are double rooms, and one has a double and single bed in it. The main bedroom upstairs is a double and also has a cot in the room, the second has a bed which is larger than a single, but smaller than a double (so may suit a new love bird couple who still enjoy the closeness, rather than a wizened old couple who sleep at separate ends !) The third bedroom upstairs has a single bed, but it is still a reasonable sized bedroom.

There is one main living room which is very large, it contains a 3 seater settee, a 2 seater, 4 single 'comfy' chairs (2 of which are designed for style rather than comfort I think), a dining table and 8 chairs, TV, video and DVD combi, a wood burning fireplace (which we didn't need, so I can't comment on that), there's free wifi, which took a little sorting out, but was fairly speedy and there's a billiard table. There is a 450Euro deposit for the billiard table, so we never bothered with that, but it is covered so makes a wonderful junk stop for putting bags, hats, car keys etc. The living room has patio doors out to the garden.

The kitchen, considering the size of the house, is mighty small. Although they have managed to fit in a washer, a dishwasher, a microwave, kettle, toaster and a full sized fridge freezer, but the worktop space is at a premium. Having said that, we did manage to cook meals for 8, and there is more than enough crockery and cutlery to go round.

The linen and towels are included in the rental costs; pets are welcome in the property and most important of all there is a private swimming pool, which has an electric pool cover and a small diving board. There is plenty of space around the pool for 8 sun loungers, and still leave room for kids to play. Next to the pool there is a shower which sprays short bursts of cold water for you to rinse off after coming out of the pool.

The inside of the cottage is very oldie worldie and quaint, the main room has lovely beams across the ceiling, and the furniture is old fashioned. Only on the final evening did we discover that the coffee table actually opens out into a large gaming table, perfect for playing cards, or Pictionary as we were.

The garden isn't huge, but is big enough for playing badminton and scatch, and there's also a shed for storing the sun lounger covers and any floating toys for the pool. Anyone visiting now will find a the tree missing a fair few leaves after being bashed by badminton racquets in order to get the shuttlecocks back down again. There's a wooden table with wooden benches under a vine covered canopy for eating outdoors, plus there are a couple of white plastic tables and chairs for sitting out in the garden. Behind the pool area there is parking for two cars and a grassed area with a couple of washing lines, handy from drying out towels, or I suppose washing some of your clothes to save a job when you get home.

When we arrived we were greeted by the key holders, who were absolutely wonderful, very enthusiastic, and far better at English than we were at French, much to our shame, although we did try our best. They showed us around the cottage and showed us how the oven, dishwasher, etc worked. They also had juice and water ready in the fridge and served everyone a drink whilst they were chatting, and had very kindly bought a bottle of the local wine for us. As the gentleman went off to show a couple of us how to work the pool cover should it be necessary, his wife showed us some of the areas to visit and gave us details about which beaches were manned and safe, and which beaches were without lifeguards and were more dangerous. All in all you couldn't fault the reception we received, and after such a long journey it was nice to be greeted properly, rather than being thrown a key over a reception counter and left to get on with it.

As the cottage was in such a small village, there was no street lighting, so the rooms were pitch black at night, which I loved, because I cannot stand even a sliver of light during the night, it was also absolutely silent, no raving drunks banging around at night, no cars racing around, absolute bliss. Probably the most noise came from us, with my nephew and niece becoming highly competitive over a game of Pictionary and Monopoly! The beds seemed comfy enough, no one had any complaints about mattresses, but luckily we'd had a good look at the photos on the Frenchlife website, and decided in advance that the pillows looked flat, which indeed they were, so we'd taken our own pillows as extras and they came in very handy.

The cottage is also well situated in the village for walking to the local Patisserie for early morning croissants and fresh baguettes, and the local supermarket. Although we only used the supermarket once as it was just small and a little expensive. A much large (in fact huge) supermarket can be found in Marennes, a town about 15 minutes away by car. The villages all seemed friendly enough, whilst we never had long conversations, they all said hello and gave a smile as we walked past. There's a small cafe bar, but no restaurant in the village, so if you're eating out you have to travel by car for about 10-15 minutes.
 

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