Our favourite villas: Le Chateau

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Le Chateau is a charming and very well-furnished holiday house near the charming village of St Paul de Vence (you can hear the church bell), surrounded by some of the most beautiful countryside in the South of France. The private swimming pool is 10m x 5m and there is maid service 3 days per week. A house of real architectural merit, quite unlike the many samish villas that line the Riviera and very well located for restaurants and supermarkets. Air conditioning, satellite tv, alarm, security gates. £4600 per week, available all weeks in July.

No Frills: No courtesy

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I catch a lot of no frills flights and it would be good if our suffering passengers got their heads together to praise and scorn as appropriate. Firstly the big beasts Easyjet and Ryanair need separating, and that is simple. Their websites are
equally friendly, (unlike their staff) but not as good as BA.

Thereafter the differences are sharp. Somehow Ryanair has gathered up ground staff and cabin staff who are especially and uniquely illiterate. The Ryanair airport announcements are a polyglot gabble in bossy tones and incomprensible. Easyjet learnt from GO! (whom they bought from BA) to speak slowly – and how to deal with grumbling passengers. Ryanair allegedly charge cabin staff for their jobs by way of making them pay for ‘training’ – rather in the style of doorman at Claridges – and the staff allegedly resent that. And it shows.

So you can choose between the noisy lot and the quiet lot. Both will offer amazing deals – and half the deals are deceptions. But both say it is cheaper if you book early – and both mean it. And keep to it

The smaller no frills are hugely nicer  – they are mostly spin offs from established airlines (example German Wings from KLM) and know what they are doing. Any new ones, which are starting from scratch, are best left alone.

Deal direct to book your villa holiday

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True story:

“What fantastic views” we enthused, trying to ignore the clouds of dust that were blowing in front of it, and trying not to look them other way. The views in one direction were indeed of the highest quality, as was the villa that we were being asked to offer, but the earth was shaking underneath it, and I couldn’t think of a nice way to put it, so I said, “Those JCBs are a bit noisy though”.

“Oh, we hardly notice them, ” the owner said. That was hard to fathom, since there were 6 of them engaged in earth moving operations.

“Well, you would if you were paying to stay here.”

“To be honest, we do notice them when we arrive”.

“When do you think the work will finish”

“I’m not sure. Not soon.”

“Why don’t you let us know when it’s all finished?”

“Is it a problem?”

“UK law says we can’t let a house when there is a building site nearby. We are an ABTA member.”

“Oh, well, I’ll just put it on a direct website then! They won’t be able to sue me here. ”

Dealing with an agent means that you can sue the agent. If you are spending serious money then accountability is worth thinking about.