La Secrète en Alsace, Gîte familial spacieux avec jardin, proche Colmar & Route des Vins

We stayed with 6 people for 4 nights and were delighted with the house, and also had some mixed experiences or struggles (cf. below). We rented the house for its location in a village, facing the fields and arriving at the gate and entering the yard confirmed the choice and delivered on wide spaces and open views. Excellent. The spacious garden and terraces have several different areas, which is great. Inside, the ground floor provides a spacious living-sitting-room with open kitchen – excellent except that the living area has 4 chairs only while the sofas are in a separate lounge. The kitchen is particularly cool and flexible to be used by 3 or 4 people at a time. Everything is of mix of old and new furniture, design and technology. The bedrooms are distributed two upstairs where the full bathroom is. One downstairs, adjacent to the lounge, and with an extra lavabo. Beds are from different decades and comfortable. Lots of sheets and linen available. The solar-powered charging station was super helpful, and small things like a cherry tree and garden berries were very pleasant. Other pluses: Compost and insect hotel in the garden. Overall, we totally recommend the house under the condition that you are not expecting a fully state of the art location. (see below)

We were surprised that there was a second house on the same premise that would be used by other tenants. The garden and terraces felt a bit under-cared to say the least – and are shared with these neighbours. The 1.5 – 2 bathroom description was unclear and no second bathroom/shower existed (bathroom + lavabo in groundfloor bedroom). The groundfloor has a tiny corridor with washing machine and – on top of it! – a dish washer, leading to a WC. Not bad but difficult to use. Large outdoor spaces felt abandoned (whirlpool, former pool, massage/gym) and a number of items were not well maintained/installed (WC seats, window frames, garbage area), which makes the place feel sadder than necessary. Some effort would upgrade it to a top location. Our main reason to rent the house was the garden with supposedly two nice terraces for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Those were not set up as advertised (and some furniture was rotten), so we had to assemble furniture to actually use the garden in the projected way. Once set up, breakfasts and sundowners were our favourite activities there. We were very surprised, concerned and wondering why the CCTV system was actually operating (moving) while we were there, sitting in the garden. This needs transparent communication and consent.