Buzzard's View - Eglwysbach - North Wales

When did we visit?
2 May 2014 - 9 May 2014

How much was it?
£449.00

Who did we book with?
Sykes Cottages









What were our initial impressions?
We loved the last couple of miles drive to the cottage.  It may not be for the fainthearted driver - a narrow, steep, shale country lane, more of a track in places, going right through a rough and bumpy farmyard.

The location of the cottage was fabulous.  Fairly remote, though the owners' house is next door.  Whilst the cottage is one of a semi-detached pair, the way that they have been designed means that neither cottage overlook the other at all, so you do feel really private.

The outlook from the cottage was amazing.  It's really high up and you couldn't have asked for better views from the decking.  The deck was accessible from the sun room, off the lounge and was furnished with a table, four chairs and two sun loungers.  How we hoped for sunshine.

After a quick look round we were impressed.  The cottage was really clean, tastefully decorated, with some beautiful artwork and felt nice and cosy and warm.

There was lots of purple - I love purple!

There were two bedrooms, one en suite with a shower, and the other opposite a nice big bathroom, with a huge bath.

The only thing that wasn't hitting the mark for us was the bath towels.  These were neither wide nor long enough to protect either of our modesty - you know how we feel about bath towels.  As we didn't want this to put a downer on our holiday, or my review, I decided that I would ask the owner if they had any bigger towels.  I was glad I did.  Not only did I end up getting some nice big fluffy bathsheets, but we were given a guided tour of the attaching cottage by the lovely Lucy, who couldn't have been more friendly or helpful. 

Note to self - if there's anything that is not quite right, you can't lose anything by asking the question!

Whilst there wasn't really a welcome pack, there was enough tea, coffee and sugar to get us started, no milk though.  There was also a delicious locally made Bara Brith loaf.

There was a nice big basket of logs, with firelighters and kindling also available, for the log burner, with good detailed instructions, which we looked forward to testing out later in the week.




Our likes over the course of the week

• This is truly one of the cleanest cottages we've come across - even the cutlery drawer was sparkling, with no crumbs.
• There was a nice empty cupboard for us to store our provisions, with no random left behind bits and pieces from previous guests.  I mean, like we are going to use someone else's Bisto or flour that's been there goodness knows how long.
• The location did not disappoint.  The views were amazing, whatever the weather, and we saw it all, apart from snow!
• The wildlife was pretty varied too.  There was always a different bird or squirrel to try and take pictures of.
• The drive to and from the cottage was great fun.  When coming back after a day out, you had a real sense of getting away from it all.  I did hang out of the sun roof of the car on a couple of occasions to film the ascent and descent of the road.  You can see the descent here.
• The cottage was always nice to come back to.  As well as being nice and cosy and warm, there was a good DVD collection of some fairly up to date DVDs, we could connect the PS3 and the Wifi worked a treat.

Anything that could have made it better

• A downstairs loo would be ace, but then, we are a bit lazy when it comes to going up and down stairs.
• You could only get a phone signal for Orange when outside of the cottage.

Would we recommend this cottage to our friends and family?
Yes, we most definitely would.

Would we stay in this cottage again?
We would love to.