Saint-Jean-d'Angely area holiday villa: Cha Chevrier, Matha

We were lucky enough to rent this great villa for two weeks in August this year. We have rented many homes in France over the years and this rates as one of the best. We arrived after a long journey to find a clean beautiful house with everything you could need for a lovely holiday. Everything from bedlinen and towels to crockery and coffee machine was really high quality. The house itself is extremely spacious with a comfortable lounge and has a wonderful terrace with patio furniture (where we ate most days), covered bbq area and enormous garden. The owner was also kind enough to leave a large paddling pool for the children. It is secluded and quiet and the only contact you have really is with three sheep in the field across the road (which our children named and fed bread to). Having said the house is secluded it is also only about a five minute drive from a nice little town which has bakers, a bar, a restaurant (which was very good) and quite a few other shops including surpermarkets - so we felt we had the best of both worlds.

Other bigger towns including Cognac (very smart), St Jean D'Angely (beautiful with plenty of restaurants) and Jarnac are about 25 minutes away by car. Jarnac is a lovely town with a great river area with a restaurant which also has an open air swimming pool - really good for children.

To get to the coast is a little further - but we did have enjoyable day trips to La Rochelle and the brilliant waterpark at Arcachon (called Aqualand). After days out it was great to get back to the house to relax with drink on the terrace.

We would definitely recommend this house to anyone who likes to do plenty of things on holiday but also relax in peace and quiet when they feel like it. We hope the next visitors enjoy their stay as much as we did. One last thing in terms of value for money - you won't get any better!