Aux Couleurs Miel

Hôte très accueillant et de bon conseil, hormis l'organisation spatiale qui est un peu inhabituelle les lieux sont très propres, spacieux et le gîte est vraiment très bien situé et au calme.

The village of Montolieu is extremely charming and well equipped with shops for most day to day needs, as well as craft and local produce shops and a really excellent wine cave with a helpful and knowledgeable English owner. As well as a choice of very nice cafes and restaurants, and of course multiple book and art shops and several galleries, there is live music some evenings at l'Apostrophe (where there was really good buffet food too), as well as the tapas bar in the village square where, yes, the locals play boulles! The house is on the edge of the village, about a ten minute walk up a gentle hill, to the village centre. There was plenty of free parking outside. The house is air conditioned which was wonderful as we were there in a heatwave. The outside terrace is beatiful, spacious and well furnished. Inside is quite modern, with wonderful natural light in particular via the huge glass doors of the kitchen diner. The beds were super comfortable, which combined with the aircon, meant I slept really well.

There were no towels provided, which in my experience both as a host and traveller, is very unusual. The host explained this was his 'choice'. As we had all flown from the UK, and hadn't brought towels, we would have had to buy them specially, and find room in our already full luggage to take them home. Luckily we had friends staying in a house in Carcassonne from where we borrowed some, but travellers wishing to book this place in future should note the need to bring their own. The vis a vis bathroom and toilet (you have to go through the bathroom and toilet to the other side of the house, or around the outside) is an unusual layout - could be awkward for groups who are not already super relaxed around each other. There were also no dishwasher tablets or toilet roll provided. The owner brought over one roll of toilet paper when we asked, but we had to buy a whole box of dishwasher tablets for a 3 night stay. I didn't notice if washing powder or tablets were provided, but I imagine not. There was washing up liquid.