Beautiful and well-equipped holiday apartment situated in a multi-apartment flat. Large balcony to the south, with sea view through trees. Large and well-maintained pool for a good swimming workout. Two TV sets, in sitting and sleeping room, and fast WiFi. Private parking space. Friendly and helpful proprietor, puts up clear (albeit lots of rather intimidating) house rules, in French. Supermarket next door. Short walking distance to the rocky shore, which is not really a "beach" in this quarter.

4-lane road (D559) with heavy and noisy incessant all-day traffic scarcely 100 metres away from balcony and pool (fortunately at least, the sleeping room is on the far side). No bed linen, no (kitchen) towels, no paper towels, no cleaning cloth included (bed sheets supplied on request = 35 € on top for 3 days' stay). Yet final cleaning by guests required (which I learned only after irreversably booking the place), so you'd better bring all the cleaning stuff. Or pay the 70 € fee from your deposit of 570 €.

The location of this privately hired apartment is good. It was clean when we, eventually, gained access to the property. It’s been recently renovated with several great features and luxury items which were appreciated like a new Nespresso machine. There’s an Aldi opposite which is handy for everyday groceries. The local beach, a 15 minute walk away, is stunning. The town of La Ciotat is picturesque. The host was quick at communicating.

We have stayed in countless properties via Booking.com and have always left accurate, truthful, and positive reviews for every place we have stayed. Until this May half term. A series of issues led to an uncomfortable, noisy and poor experience in general. We didn’t know our room number or check in procedures until moments before arriving. We only gained access to the property car park because another resident arrived at the same time. On arrival, we were told how to use an electric door lock as there was no key. We had no issues with this way of entering the property. However, this worked on entering the apartment, but when we left, followed the instructions on how to lock the door, on re-entry an hour later the door wouldn’t unlock. We called the host who opened the door remotely. He then asked us to visit a website and enter a code to access the Bluetooth lock (no instructions on Booking.com). These details did not work. We managed to creatively figure out to download the app, use the code shared by the host with our mobile number then sync the app on our mobile with the door. In sum, having travelled 11 hrs this was a rather disappointing start to the visit. The description on Booking.com promised cleaning products (none) toilet roll (there were none), safety deposit box (didn’t work), air conditioning (worked as a fan but not cooling which was tricky with 27 degree heat) Although it stated the property was sound proofed, our neighbours could be heard on a number of occasions, including on the final night when they partied all night, which meant we slept less than 3hrs prior to driving home to the UK. The pool was unkept, sun loungers dirty and the area around the pool was left untidy with cigarette buts littering the space surrounding the pool. We were forced to pay an upfront safety deposit of more than €500, which would be returned on departure as promised by the host, as long as nothing was broken and the apartment was cleaned.