Charente holiday cottage: Lesterps

We have stayed at Verina 3 times (a month in total) in the last 10 months. It is a lovely, very well equipped house. The peace and tranquillity are a lovely change to our normal hectic life style. We have 4 children and our parents and my sister come with us (so 9 of us in total) and the house comfortably takes all of us.
The pool is lovely (although would benefit from solar heating) and our children spend all day - every day in it. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to tear ourselves away to discover the region. On our trips around the area we have discovered many very beautiful villages and the swimming lakes such as Etagnac are brilliant.
We love Verina and couldn't recommend it highly enough.

Verina is a great venue for all who seek peace and quiet in wonderful Charente Maritime/Limousin countryside. We were two couples so the house was more than big enough for the four of us, with three more bedrooms than we needed. The comfortable new mattresses were much appreciated at the end of our busy days.
There was a lovely feeling of spaciousness in this well converted building, a feeling complemented by the open fields and woodland surrounding us.
Pictures of the house scarcely do it justice as they can't convey the comfortable rustic atmosphere that we enjoyed so much.
The swimming pool at the back is well maintained though it could benefit from some solar heating in the cooler seasons.

The owner's brother and sister-in-law who live ten minutes away look after the property and they are charming, helpful people.

The area is ideal for walking and cycling as once you are in any of the lanes you would be unlucky to see any traffic.

Only a few minutes away is the village of Lesterps with its one restaurant, Les Tilleuls. This restaurant is well worth a visit though we didn't try it until the final evening unfortunately. Here we had one of our best meals in the area, beautifully served with great warmth and friendliness.

This is a very interesting region for touring by car, and our most poignant visit was to nearby Oradour sur Glane, the village whose population was wiped out on June 10th, 1944, in the most appalling circumstances. Not everyone's idea of a holiday visit, but tragically compelling.

Verina is sensibly priced and good value all round.

This is a beautiful location on a working farm with views over the rolling countryside, including a wildlife pond and magnificent Limousin cattle. Verina has all the facilities you need to enjoy rural Charentes, a swimming pool, excellent restaurants, very good local shop in Lesterps and supermarkets relatively close in St Junien. The property was clean on arrival and easy to maintain, almost everything worked (a few light bulbs needed replacing) and we found everything we needed with some guidance from Lindsay. Verina makes a good base for exploring Limoges (porcelain factory tours much the best) and Poitiers (Futuroscope), but it is about 2.5 hours from the beach, so not good for beach holidays. There are also plenty of old churches in the area, some dating to the 10th century, which have to be seen to be believed. Othe attractions include the site of the last meteorite impact in Europe at Rochechouart (excellent restaurant in the Hotel - not the meteorite cafe). Swimming in the nearby etangs was an experience, and we woudl recommend the Velo rail to work off the restaurant activity! We had a very good relaxing time - the mobile phone signal is virtually non-existent so no annoying phone calls at al! Thank you.