La Parenthèse Cassidaine

The apartment would really benefit from more ambient lighting - lamps in the bedroom and living room (we ended up buying some tealights to create more of an atmosphere). The most unusual thing, however, was the arrangement concerning the keys. I was chased by email the night before (when I was not online), having previously indicated an arrival time within the window outlined on the website - and the hostess called the next morning to arrange a precise time for handing over the keys. Okay - this was via her son, who was a little late, but not a big deal. The next morning we were asked to drive to another town to hand back the key. It was on the way to Marseille, where we were heading, and in the end fairly straightforward. But what if we'd been heading in the other direction? I found the whole arrangement quite stressful (I was on holiday!), and I think for the amount we paid (double other places in the region, although I take this to be a sort of Cassis tariff), the arrangements should put more responsibility on the hostess and less on the guest. The apartment itself is clean and comfortable. It would benefit from information at hand concerning the coffee table (which lifts to make a table that you can sit at - I only realised this as we were getting ready to leave), how to get online (the wifi is okay but not great, it cut out a few times), and perhaps (pour les anglais!) the fact that there are shutters outside the window rather than curtains inside (but we did work this out!).