We stayed at Anabela’s place with our 2 cats for over 2 months from November to January when we moved to Portugal, we are self-employed and used the property as a place to live and work whilst we looked for long-term accommodation. Our stay at Anabela’s place unfortunately fell short in multiple areas, we had very high hopes due to the previous reviews but our stay did not meet these expectations.
Good points:
- The apartment (not a cottage) has beautiful views, some of the best I’ve ever had in an AirBnB.
- The surrounding area is very nice, traditional Portuguese life is going on around you, from the daily visits from the goat shepherd (very friendly) to the church bells every 15 minutes, the neighbours are very nice and have a sweet dog who is friendly (also cat friendly).
- The apartment is well equipped for a long term stay, the WIFI is good and unlimited.
- The fire in the living room gets nice and warm if you use plenty of wood, the gas burning heater is also quite efficient at warming the large room during the day as it was quite cold inside in winter (typical of Portuguese houses).
- The apartment is located about a 10-15 minute drive from Vale de Cambra which has all the amenities you need, supermarkets, garages, vets, public parks etc. Vale de Cambra is also well connected to the toll roads, you can get to Porto and Aveiro within an hour.
- There is a very nice BBQ in the garden.
Bad Points:
- The listing is not accurate. The apartment was listed as an entire cottage (and still is listed as such). There is an apartment downstairs/kitchen upstairs which is rented out independently to the main apartment. The outside space is shared and you cannot use the whole house which is what was stated in the listing.
- We were shocked at the lack of communication during our stay. From the many unexpected visits during working hours (although some visits were pleasant) to not being told about the downstairs apartment being prepared to be rented out for 2 weeks over Christmas (which didn’t end up happening but again there was no communication so we constantly expected these guests to arrive), we only found out about this when we messaged Anabela after 2 days of being woken up by construction work to ask what was happening. Anabela’s husband Joao turned up one night with many men who surrounded the property for about 30 minutes, we did not know what was going on until Joao knocked at the door and requested for us to let them all in to have a tour of the house.
- Anabela’s husband Joao held a 2 day scout camp at the downstairs apartment, upstairs kitchen and the entire outside space of the property. Anabela and Joao didn’t feel the need to mention this to us in advance. This was our final straw which led to us leaving the property early.
- The apartment was not ready when we arrived. We drove 2500 km over 5 days to get to the accommodation. We unexpectedly waited over an hour with our cats in a car park for the host meet us, when we finally arrived at the house it was not ready to check in. The shower was broken (not the hosts fault but it took over 24 hours for them to fix this when they said that they would come back on our second day after lunch to fix the shower, they came at 7pm), the beds were not made and I had to help the host to make the beds, empty the dishwasher, put linens away etc
- The cleanliness of the house was not good. The bathroom was very dirty and mouldy. The bed sheets in the second bedroom were smelly and sweat stained, we don't think they had been changed from the previous guests. The winter blankets on both beds smelled, so we bought a new duvet to use. On the other hand the floors and patio were very clean.
- Although the location is generally very good, the road that leads to the house is extremely steep and bumpy and the driveway is also on a steep incline which caused damage to our car (handbrake) after our 2 month stay. Our car has low clearance and we scraped it many times coming in and out of the property.
- The beds are uncomfortable for a long term stay, they are very short (I’m 5’5” and my feet overhung the end) and hard/creaky.
- The hosts asked us to pay money outside of AirBnB for utilities which is forbidden on AirBnB. We contacted AirBnB after our stay regarding our issues, we ended up having to use the resolution center and we were eventually given the refund we asked for.
Overall we can’t say that we would recommend staying here, especially for a long stay… It would probably be okay for just a short holiday.