L'Appartement Haussmannien

This place was a complete disappointment as the photos make it look 5 star when actually it is not well appointed at all, is in need of a repaint, new sofa and has cheap furnishings. The sofa is white leather - it's dirty, heavily worn and you stick to it in the heat. There are no dishwasher tablets, washing up liquid, toilet paper, bin liners or hand towels. There are some cleaning utensils, however they are old and dirty and ought to be thrown away (stained dishcloth and well used cleaning scourer which I did not use).

There are also no beach towels (the description is incorrect) and no wine glasses!!! The shower and tv are the two best things in the apartment. Although there is no DVD player, a real let down. The place would seriously benefit from air conditioning and mosquito nets on all the windows as we were eaten alive and had to have a fan on all night to moderate the heat. It is also on a very noisy main road, so bring ear plugs - luckily I had!

The worst part is having to pay for 'final cleaning' which is a joke as YOU have to do the final cleaning YOURSELF! This is a TOTAL RIP-OFF as I have basically paid them for having cleaned it myself (and I left it cleaner than it was when we arrived). Most of the eating and cooking utensils had to be washed before we could use them, but as we bought dishwasher tablets, we made sure they had all been in the machine before leaving. We were even going to wash the towels and bedding ourselves as this is the only thing they tell you not to do so they can ask for a cleaning fee, which they had deducted from the deposit, ensuring we had no way of disputing it. You could get them dry-cleaned for less!

Marc spoke not a single word of English and had to ask his brother Edouard to contact us to communicate, as I couldn't understand his southern accent, although I am proficient in French.

It was an absolute nightmare getting to Rue de la Republique by car due to road works, which made us 45 mins late due to driving round Marseille in circles, the hosts were not very accepting of this although there was nothing we could do about it. The apartment is on the 5th floor of a winding staircase - no lift, so be warned if you don't want to traipse up and down a lot of steps everyday.

The location is great as you are right by the vieux port and tourism office, but avoid the restaurants by the water front as they are a rip off and serve terrible food. Parking locally in car parks costs about €2 an hour.