The truth behind those Airbnb snaps

Catriona and I had agreed that a terrace for smoking, eating, drinking and painting was a necessity rather than a luxury, blow the expense. One of the photographs of an Airbnb just above my price range showed an elegant round table with two romantic champagne flutes and an uninterrupted terrace view of a ridiculous sunset over the Ligurian sea and the coast of Italy. The faintly aphrodisiac image was a mug punter’s eyeful and I greedily tapped the button committing me to three nights at Sandrine’s Airbnb apartment, perched in the heart of Menton old town.

Free parking was to be had next to the cemetery of the Old Château, resting ground of tubercular Russian nobility and upper-middle-class English. We trundled our trolley bags down through narrow haphazard streets and found our door in the wall and key safe. The apartment was airy and well equipped but grubby. The window panes couldn’t have been cleaned for weeks.