Airbnb in Treize Vents, Vendee. Arrival September 6th 2018

We arrived in Roscoff on the 6^th September 2018 after a rather cramped crossing. Brian had reserved a seat on board the Oscar Wilde but when we discovered that our cabin had 4 bunks we offered one to him. We had a frustrating time because our cabin keys did not always work and the loo didn't flush on demand requiring many trips to reception to report the fault. We lunched en route in Brittany – Galettes and Galiflette. 

After doing a supermarket shop, we arrived at Gite Eulalie at 6.30 pm and were met by Christophe who showed us around. It was a quirky place - a barn conversion with one big room that served as kitchen, dining room and bedroom and a mezzanine that was the sitting room with bed settees for extra guests. This became Brian's bedroom. The open plan room downstairs was dominated by the bed structure - a bit like a four poster bed with the mattress slotted in within the wooden framework. The front of the structure had shelves for books etc. The back was the dressing area - with hanging space and more shelving. Behind this was further storage for the kitchen, a bathroom and a utility room. The bathroom had a bath to the left, a wet area in the centre, the toilet to the right and a washing machine opposite the toilet. We soon discovered that this arrangement was not very practical as only the first person to shower had a completly dry passage to the toilet. After the first shower the passage to the toilet was wet. I would have completely rearranged the set up. In any case, we unpacked and settled in. We had a satisfying evening meal of charcuterie and wine/beer. Christophe had left very welcome craft beer, wine and a brioche. 

We soon discovered that the bed was very hard to get out of for people with short legs. It required a very special manoeuvre involving raising yourself from the now lower mattress (not an easy job if your are my weight!) and easing yourself on to the wooden lip where my short legs could not reach the floor. I then had to shuffle myself to the very edge to get my feet to the ground and then stand up. Jim had equal difficulty and indeed ended up with self-inflicted bruises due to the manoeuvres he adopted.

Christophe has presented the outside of his gites very attractively - we even had our own private garden space where we could eat outside if the weather suited.

Below, we closed this door and were totally enclosed at night.

The gite opposite - another barn conversion, a variation on the theme. In this one the kitchen was upstairs. Christophe had 2 more gites and, judging from the amount of changeovers, he seems to be doing well.