Casa Cain, La Palma
Review Submitted: February 20, 2009
Date of Stay: December 2008
We stayed at Casa Cain over Christmas 2008. With two children, one a two year old and one of six months, our needs are fairly specific, and this accommodation met them well. It’s an odd layout – a long narrow dwelling in the lower storey of a traditional Canarian house, with a wall of windows looking west over the valley to the sea. Off the galley-like front of the house, which houses a well fitted out kitchen and dining area, are three bedrooms and the shower room/toilet. In addition to all of this, there is a structure in the garden, which our two year old referred to as the ‘tiny wooden house’, which is in fact a good sized wooden chalet, and this is also part of the accommodation. It is set up to be self-sufficient, with a bed, seating area, television, kitchenette, and shower etc, but in practice this is what comprises your sitting room, as there’s no such area in the main apartment.
What with children waking up in the night and so on – all the usual stuff of life with small kids – either I or my partner, with or without the baby, would often end up sleeping in the chalet. An unusual arrangement perhaps, but it worked out well for us.
The garden is lovely, and this being the Canaries, you spend quite a lot of your life out there. Herbs such as oregano and chillies are yours for the picking, as are abundant citrus fruits. There’s a fairly small pool, which looked nice, but we didn’t try it, the coast and beaches being only 10km or so away. A car here, by the way, is pretty well essential.
The environs of the house are what you might call between urban and rural – it’s fairly built up but there’s a farm next door – much to the delight of our two year old - and levels of traffic are minimal.
Sue and Finlo, the owners of the property, live in the flat above. English émigrés, they are charming hosts, who did their best to make our stay as enjoyable as possible. In addition to Sue and Finlo, the flat above houses several cats, who come and go with an insouciance which suggests that they firmly believe they are the rightful owners of your holiday dwelling. Not a problem if you like cats – otherwise, this could be an issue.
Overall, we were really impressed with this accommodation. We would be very pleased to go back, and are happy to recommend it.
Owner's Response: We have had several couples with very young children staying in our apartment and it seems to work very well from all sides.
We will have a word with the cats about keeping out of the way of new visitors!
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