Spacious Villa Retreat in Carcassonne

With a little bit of tender love and care, the owners could improve on staying here for your vacation. This was a one week vacation for us as a family with two small childeren. The house itself looks nice enough. Upon entering the house we were welcomed by a very stale sent and as we approached the kitchen that sent even turned a bit moldy. We bought some scents in the supermarket to cover the bad smell so at least our stay wouldn't be shrouded in a musty smell. We arrived on saturday. There were no parasols present even though the Belvilla page did mention they would be present. We asked the owner twice for them. We received a good parasol at the pool on tuesday. A very small parasol (too small) was provided vor the eating table outside, which would not provide much shade. I wasn't going to bring the matter up again so we bought our own parasol for eating at the table. The tree at the eating table outside had no leaves and thus provided no shade. Eating in the sun was hot. From the terras of the house and the pool you have a great unhindered view of the citadel, which is beautifull. The jacuzzi was also not filled when we arrived. We had to wait untill tuesday to be able to use it. The jacuzzi area lacked any kind of table/chair/loungeseat ... The barbeque is very dated and doesn't fully function, but it got the job done nonetheless. The house has no airconditioning, which we knew and is no problem in itself, so you rely on cooling the house by opening windows at night and in the morning. But the house has no fly screens so all the mosquitos get to fly in. The house does have blinds which are great for sleeping and keeping the sun out. The pool was great in itself, even if the water was very cold. A sunsleeve on top of the water in the morning could quickly heat the water. However on thursday we noticed the water of the pool started turning slightly green. On friday it was obviously worse and stepping on the bottom felt slimy. I have no idea if any products were used to keep algae at bay but i could not smell any chlorine. The owners are very nice people. They live on the lower floor of the house. You do not notice them a lot. Sometimes you can hear them on the stairs but mainly they keep sounds down. We had a fierce thunderstorm which knocked the elektricity out twice. Them living in the house too made it easy to have elektricity restored. The house is located in a vacation home neighbourhood. However once you leave that neighbourhood you drive into the outskirts of Carcassonne. Carcassonne city is no longer what it has once been. A lot of marginal and malicious people were lurking around. Visiting the citadel was no problem as those people did not appear there but they did at the other sites throughout the city. The neighbourhood obviously no longer is what it has once been.