Le mas Odaline is a beautiful house, located on the outskirts of the historic and popular Gordes. Location up the hill and within walking distance to Gordes. The town is full of tourists at daytime and you may have a hard time finding a place to park your car. However, the house is practically situated in peace and quiet uphill.
We were very kindly received by the sweet and welcoming Brigitte who gave us a good introduction to the house, and who brought us delicious cherries, melon and two nice bottles of wine as welcoming gift.
The house is basically fine, built in yellow stones, which are the hallmark of the area. It has a lovely view of the hills and there is a lot of outdoor areas in different levels. The pool area is great and seems newly built. The pool is great and has a perfect size and depth for swimming. As a children's pool, it may be less suitable, since it is deep at both ends. A guy discreetly passes by once a week in the morning to maintain the pool and garden.
The house is spacious with 4 bedrooms. Two of these share a balcony with beautiful views. There are two bathrooms - both with a bath tub - and three toilets that after French tradition are in separate room from the bathrooms. There is a nice and cozy living room and a dining room from where you have access to a small porch and the garden (not to the pool, unfortunately). There is of course a kitchen – a small one though – and a utility room.
All in all we were happy with our choice of house! However, a few minor things could be pointed out: Especially the bathrooms are kind of worned out… To be honest the house could do with some maintenance and some “refreshing” finish here and there… This would raise the standard quite a bit! :-)
A last thing (and we cannot blame anyone for this – except maybe the weather Gods!;-)) Staying in Provence is some kind of a lottery because of the Mistral. Even to us “Northerners” it became a challenge. We only had a single weeks vacation, and for four days we were paralyzed because of heavy, noisy and freezing storms… Everything outside had to be fixed, all shutters, windows and doors firmly closed, we could not swim, sunbathe, eat outside etc. during this period :-( Well, we were just unlucky, and we are only stating this because people not familiar with the Mistral should be aware of this risk; Besides that – le Lubron et la Provence are just fabulous! :-)
