I’ll start with the good things. The apartment is at an excellent, very central location - easy to walk to the beach and centre of the town of Cadaqués. The apartment was also pretty spacious.
Apart from that, the whole experience was a disappointment.
I am not talking about the state of the apartment here, the broken floor tiles, or the endless electricity problems. I understand some of these are due to budget constraints. The below though, have nothing to do with money. I think they are things that could have easily been avoided and it’s the minimum of hospitality that needs to be offered by any host.
The place was dirty. The floors must have never been mopped (it was like walking on a dirty sidewalk). There were loads of hair stuck on the shower drain, and dust balls dancing everywhere. At one point we used the oven and because of the grease stuck in it, the whole place was filled with thick smoke. Keep in mind there’s also no extractor fan if you want to cook something.
Also, the basics were missing. I’m not talking about ‘luxuries’ like washing machine powder or shampoo. I’m talking about washing liquid for the plates or a bit of olive oil for cooking. The kitchen was gas-powered, and there was nothing to light it up other than a broken lighter!
Finally, the communication was pretty poor. We had to send a message the day before to find out how to get in, there was no information sheet or basic instructions. But the worst part was that Ingrid didn’t even reply when we messaged her asking for help when the power went down in the whole building during the night. As a result, we spent the night without electricity. That means no lights, no heating (the only means of heating in the flat btw is a small electric heater) or hot water.