Vendays Montalivet holiday house "Beach House" in Vendays-Montalivet

This place is perfect for a getaway by train. We travelled from London via Lille and Bordeaux in under 11 hours, though the cab at Lesparre was a bit unplanned, but ended up being the very friendly Jean-Louis owner of the Tapas bar by Lesparre station.

Really not sure what the first review is going on about, we read all 3 before coming and were really pleased with our decision to take the first one with a pinch of salt and put it down to someone with a chip on their shoulder. We took the West Flat with our 2 year old daughter and had a fantastic 2 week stay in September 2010.

Yes, the house is very relaxed in a shabby chic kind of way but is extremely well kitted out, from the kitchen equipment and sand pit in the garden to the solar thermal renewables on the roof keeping the water piping hot, as well as the full selection of books and DVDs

The town is a bit touristy (thankfully winding down when we were there), but the Sunday market was good for stocking up on local products when we first arrived, and the ability to walk to the fabulous beach/boulangerie/ice cream stand within 5 minutes, more than makes up for the tourist trap trinket shops

We hired bikes, child seat and child “chariot” (for post-lunch snoozes) while we were here and it was relatively easy on the bike paths to get up to Soulac, the windmill in Vensac, and the great duck restaurant “La Cousteyre” near Vendays, or even just the daily rides to the local beach/park/Aldi (2 minutes by bike). We’d also recommend Le Canoe restaurant in Port Goulee for great lunch and kids corner of toys plus slide and swings outside to keep them busy

The beach at Montalivet was the best that we tried on the peninsula (compared to Pin Sec, Le Gurp, Pointe de la Negade and Soulac), with life guard swimming area, good surf and rock “beach balustrades” which protect you from the breeze and provide a place for high tide pools to form for younger kids to splash about in.