Les Pensees Douces

The check-in is after 5 pm and really not pleasant when you have been travelling for hours in 30+ degrees and need a shower. The owner doesn't speak a word of English, so if your French isn't up to par, you'll have a bad time trying to figure out this place. The door to the house has a combo lock, which works, if you have the right touch, or you stay outside for the night. Soap was not included, but the owner removed the shower gel the previous guest left behind to probably keep to himself. Impossible to have the windows closed during the night due to the heat (no A/C), which made it even more difficult to sleep because of all the Saturday night party noise outside. To make it even more frustrating the owner came early in the morning and made more noise than what was done from half of the town during the night. If you're suffering from insomnia, you won't have to count sheep. Of course, being shorter than 180 cm is preferred, as your feet will get stuck in the end of the bed. Cleaning is far from adequate; I saw cleaner mats on restaurant terraces than in the bathroom, which deserves a special mentioning, as the toilet is so close to the wall, that your shoulders won't fit. If your neighbour happens to shower at the same time, you'll hear everything he/she does, as the walls between the bathrooms are made of tin foil. Perhaps, to give the impression of cleanliness, the vacuum cleaner is left outside the room during your stay. Not as if there's room for it in the narrow stairway, but anyway... If you find any site withe the info, that the rooms have air conditioning, or that parking is free, it's not true. The info on those sites must have come from the owner, but it's not true!

We recently used this as a stop over on the way further south in France. The set up was good for a family of six with a small "apartment" to accommodate us all. Cedric was welcoming and helpful and the location is really good to explore a bit of Auxerre.

On arriving in Auxerre at 17:00 with 2 small children after travelling since 8 that morning we were looking forward to staying in what looked like a lovely B&B and a pleasant evening in Auxerre. How wrong we were. We found Les Violettes and used the key code give to enter the property. Our key should have been in the door to the room. The key wasn't there so we rang Monica on both phone numbers we had been supplied with. There was no answer so we left a message. We waited at the house for an hour to see if she would turn up and then decided to go for a walk. All this time we were re-trying the numbers every 5 -10 minutes. Eventually at 21:00 we finally got through to be told she had double booked us . She offered to put us up in her country house 15km away and asked us to meet her in another 1 hour and 30 minutes later at a resturant (Making it 22:30). She didn't give us directions just said it was in town center and to ask someone. We presumed she must have been eating at the resturant and we were to meet after she had finished as she didn't offer to meet at the resturant we were at or the Les Violettes. We decided as it was getting late to look into the option to get a hotel as we thought it would be more convienent for both parties. How wrong we were. We found a hotel and then contacted her to say we had found alternative accomodation . She seemed curt with us but didn't say anything about losing our deposit of 40 euro. On returning to england we requested our deposit back and she has refused saying we had caused her an inconvience ignoring the fact we had been left stranded in a Tourist town with 2 small children not knowing if we had anywhere to stay and ruined what we were hoping to be a lovely evening to finish off our holiday. We thought we were helping her out by getting a hotel so she wouldn't have to deal with some clients 15km away but how wrong we are. As a plus point Auxerre looks lovely and hopefully we may visit again but we will definately won't we using Les Violettes.