Villa Dar Ta'Jeffrey

We stayed in Jeffrey's House for 8 days in late July/early August. Our flight arrived early hours of the morning by Michael assured us that we'd be able to travel across to the property during the night and put us in touch with James at Gozo Garages (we also hired a car through them, service was fantastic throughout and I'd highly recommend them) who sorted out airport transfer (we went for direct due to the late hours, though this was the priciest option). Transfer was remarkably smooth, though it was tricky to be sure we'd got the right place (no house name) at 2am. Once inside though any stresses were forgotten. The house is stunning. Living space is all on one level (though there is a wash room and drying space on the roof (such fast drying!) which it took us a day to find - it's up a narrow spiral staircase and we weren't sure it led anywhere. A bit more info about the house might be good - we found the aircon quite tricky to work out. Anyway, the kitchen is very well equipped - good quality pans and cutlery unlike many holiday properties and there was a range of food and drink there to welcome us which was great given that we'd arrived so late. The bedrooms are very spacious, though the aircon in the middle bedroom wasn't cooling - worth bearing in mind though that this is the quietest of the bedrooms, which might not be an issue normally but definitely was during festa week! There's a bedroom with a balcony at the front of the house and the bedroom at the back, beside the kitchen, has a sliding door which leads out onto the narrow balcony overlooking the pool. There are then steps down to the pool, which is a wonderful area for lounging around in and, of course, swimming. The pool is about 10m long and starts shallow but slopes down to 2.5m at it's deepest. It's quite private and the sun loungers are really comfortable.All bedrooms are large and well-decorated. The house was clean and well kept. San Lawrenz is a lovely village, very picturesque indeed. The house is a couple of minutes' walk from the village square which has a restaurant and bar and a small and very helpful shop which is amazingly well-stocked given it's size! We didn't realise till arriving that festas are a big thing in Malta and Gozo and there are a lot of them over the summer: every village seems to have one. We were there for pretty much the entirety of San Lawrenz's festa and it did make it spectacular - marching bands, parading saints, streets trimmed up nice - but the fireworks and petards that went off from early morning till past midnight were quite intrusive when you weren't part of the festa. A spectacle, but probably nicer to visit than to stay during, especially if you have young kids who don't sleep well. Even though Gozo's small, we still left feeling there were places we hadn't visited - so we'll need to go back and would definitely want to go back to this house if we did. Although the Azure Window is no more, the area round it is still well worth a visit - and there is swimming in the sea of the bay (though entry and exit are quite precarious, all adds to the fun!); the Ta Pinu church has some stunning mosaics outside. I think these are quite new as I'd not read anything about them in guides, we just happened upon them and they're well worth a visit - as is the church which is lovely. We went to Victoria a few times - the Citadel visitors ticket which is valid for 30 days was excellent value as it meant we could do a couple of things a day.