Villa Schwarzwald

Really great place.

The villa was so beautiful, hard to believe. It was spotless and huge for our group of 12, with enough space to get lost in. We loved the sauna and pool, and there was a barbecue area too. The view over Schluchsee lake was superb, with walks nearby. Good value for money.

Schluchsee itself was lovely, with quiet surroundings, beautiful nature, nice walks, and a great viewpoint. We plan to return to the area, but not to Schwartzwald Apartment. For people with limited mobility, this apartment isn't accessible, with too many steps and too little room to turn around in some places. At first sight, the apartment was breathtaking: spacious, with magnificent surroundings and a superb lake view. That excitement wore off as we looked more closely. Mind the steps between rooms. The stairs are steep, and heat rises as you go up. On the first floor there's a bathroom with a bathtub and toilet, plus a living room with TV and a dining room with a table, chairs, and sideboard. The table may be uncomfortable if you're especially tall. The kitchen is cramped, with a single unit: sink with storage below, ceramic hob and oven, then a low, very small fridge-freezer that struggled to keep food cold. There was barely 50 cm between the counter and wall. To get to the bedrooms, you take another staircase. On the right of the landing is a spacious room with a TV, sink, and enough space to walk around the bed. Beside it is a bathroom with a toilet, but the shower drains slowly. Farther along a long corridor is a supposedly spacious bedroom with a sink, though the bed is pushed into a corner so you can't walk around it. Its two windows have no shutters, one is boarded up and can't be opened. The smallest bedroom also has a sink, but its bed is too narrow to walk around, the window is broken, and a broken tile sits at its edge. We picked up the keys from a lockbox on the front door, with nobody there to greet us. This was our first holiday since our child's cancer went into remission. I'd planned to give the owner homemade jam, but he felt like a ghost. He texted on Wednesday morning to ask if we'd be at the apartment at noon to pay the tourist tax. We had arrived Monday at 3 pm and were out walking in Freiburg, so we left the money on the dining room microwave. If you don't want to meet a landlord, this rental may suit you, though the owner might have explained why the other tenants were noisy late at night throughout our stay. Other tenants arrived shortly after us, came into our apartment without knocking, and assumed we were the owners. I don't speak German well, and they handed me a paper requesting a €500 deposit. I thought it was from the landlord. At 11:30 pm on the first night, tenants from the property moved onto the terrace. For all three nights, the noisy, inconsiderate neighbors made it impossible to open the windows to air out the apartment.

The villa is in a fantastic spot, has lots of rooms, and we always enjoy using the pool, though at 24 degrees Celsius the water is quite chilly. We've stayed several times, but problems seem to get only partly fixed, so don't expect everything to shine. This time the advertised bathrobes were missing and cleanliness fell short. Some toilets had no soap, the dishes were a mismatched mix, and the furniture was worn.