Feriendorf Via Claudia Haus 53 Alpenrose

Mrs. Demmler's service was really pleasant, and the house was probably the tidiest and best equipped vacation home I’ve stayed in. What you see on the website is what you get, with no surprises. It isn’t right on the lake, the gardens aren’t 800 square meters, and it takes a few minutes to walk to the swimming lake.

The area is beautiful, but the houses are packed close together. The terrace gets very hot with no trees for shade, and it’s pitch dark walking back from the parking lot in the evening. The flashlight in the house was dead. The owner barely having any guests may well be down to the poor service and all the extra charges. We had a fantastic holiday, but the landlady was a rip-off. Water and electricity cost extra, along with charges for things like a €1 dish towel and a €3 bath mat. We’ve never run into anything like it. The €250 deposit was supposedly at risk if we didn’t clean the oven and fireplace, so we cleaned both ourselves. We let small things go, like greasy pans, a hairdryer, and black hairs on the beds. After we left, we waited for the deposit. She didn’t contact us first, and then took out charges for our consumption, the ash bucket, sun loungers, and supposedly dog feces. The ash bucket was only a quarter full, and I didn’t know we had to empty it. The loungers had cobwebs because we hadn’t put them back in exactly the same spots. The bank account had even been listed as the payment reference. She should have returned the full deposit and billed any extra costs separately. This is no way to treat guests. It feels like they’re hunting for every little reason to take money from the deposit, which is outrageous on top of the already excessive extra charges.

The houses are new and modern inside, though they’re built close together. That didn’t bother me personally. It’s a quiet, pleasant holiday village with lots of families around. Some houses allow dogs, and there are shops and attractions nearby.

House number 42 deserves five stars: it’s nearly new, clean, and furnished with care. But the rest of the stay left a lot to be desired. There’s no tourist infrastructure in the village or in Lechbruck, no community center, fire pit, playground, or anything like that. The houses sit very close together, so you can hear every word from the many neighbors. The village is 3 km outside Lechbruck’s center, and you’ll need a car if you want bread rolls in the morning. Anyone expecting heavenly peace and quiet may be disappointed. The website gives the impression that the village is right on Lake Lechbruck and that you can take a quick swim. In reality, it’s a 10-minute walk, and swimming there would be dangerous because it’s a reservoir with a hydroelectric power plant nearby. There are no sunbathing spots by the lake near the village. The recommended Baderwäldlesee also isn’t right next door, despite what the website says. It takes a 15-minute walk through the woods to get there, and to me it looked more like a brown, boggy pool than a lake. Lechbruck charges a high tourist tax without providing services in return. The visitor’s card was useless everywhere I presented it outside Lechbruck in the Allgäu region. I only got a weary smile. They also kept part of the deposit because the dishwasher hadn’t been emptied. Outrageous, especially when the cleaner was already at the door shortly after 9 a.m. on Saturday, asking when she could finally come in.