Haven of peace overlooking the park, 10 minutes' walk from the historic center

1. Spacious apartment- truthful description on vrbo listing as being a 2-BR, 2-BA apartment on the 2nd European floor with no lift2. Free secure parking within the property a huge plus - I actually did not expect this amenity although I recall it was mentioned on listing; but it’s excellent to have and not worry about parking our rented car. 3.Living area faces an open, green space, super pleasant to be in4. Much natural light in living area (two sitting areas and formal dining area) make for a pleasant time during the day5. Small balconies in every room-wonderful6. Location - quiet, safe neighborhood just a shirt walk from the nicest residential area of Maxarine, where all the nice homes on quaint streets are7. Utile Supermarket, a boulangerie, a bodega and an apothecary are between apartment building and Mazarine, which is the beginning of of Aix’s historic center (from that angle anyway)8. The best restaurant we discovered - unfortunately only on oir last night there - in Aix is Le Brocherie (The Grill?) is on Rue de Mazarine, a really short walk from the property9. We visited a couple of very nice museums not far from the property, also in the historic center of Aix but close to Sophie's apartment - the very best one we happened to visit was in an annex, a former chapel, of Musee Granet (the Jean Planque Collection - brilliant)10. Sophie's co-host Najwa, our contact during our stay, was very nice and responsive to our text messages asking questions and help

What a wonderful experience we had here! Our first time in France and everything about this apartment was perfect. We easily walked to the old city almost every day and thoroughly enjoyed the shops and restaurants of Aix. We would recommend this property and its hosts to anyone. Although the garage was small we had no problem carefully getting our 5 passenger car into it. The hosts were wonderful and very responsive. We’re already looking forward to our next visit!

Pros: Very spacious for 2 couples. Lovely, clean, quiet and bright- lots of windows and doors for outlook to green park & fresh air. Beautiful sunsets. Kitchen well-equipped. Tons of towels. Bathroom fixtures all new. Comfy beds. Great location. Photos are accurate. Cons: Second bathroom very small for 2 adults. Second bedroom windows do not open, fan or ac only, and not enough hanging space in closet there. A few items need attention: missing lightbulbs, no instructions for tv or dvd/cd (too bad, there’s lots of them there we would have liked to listen to/view), freezer in fridge completely iced - impossible to put anything in there. Most disappointing was check-in. We texted multiple times as instructed to host, confirmed arrival time, but no one there on arrival. No reply to texts or calls for over an hour. Oh no, was this all a scam? There’s no place to park, so had to keep driving around for over an hour. Finally a WhatsApp text from a third person! with instructions on how to enter, garage, keys etc. Stressful start, but once we settled in, it was fine.

The unit was spacious and airy but many of the chairs were broken. There were numerous tables and useless stuff. Many lights didn't work and there was an unpleasant smell emanating from the kitchen drawers. The deck furniture hadn't been cleaned. The place could be exceptional but needs some TLC.