What a fabulous place to stay! The house itself is located in a beautiful part of Melbourne, full of traditional styled architecture and walking distance from coffee shops, deli, restaurants and local independent shops, as well as the foreshore with its promenade to St Kilda beach. The house has been beautifully styled and decorated throughout - 3 beds and 2 bathrooms upstairs were perfect for our family of 5, and the kitchen/living room, opening out onto the decked terrace style garden, was a great space. Livia had even put up a Christmas tree for us, and we had our Christmas Eve supper very comfortably round the table - the gas BBQ in the garden was great for steak, set off nicely with the homegrown herbs from Livia’s pots. The house felt like a luxury hotel, with crisp cotton bed linen, fluffy towels, and quality toiletries, but with the best of self sufficiency with a well equipped kitchen and helpful welcome pack of bread, butter, milk and yummy biscuits, and tea, coffee, oil and condiments available for cooking. We only cooked a couple of times, but the kitchen would be perfectly capable of handling full family cooking. The instruction manual was admirably comprehensive, and we enjoyed WiFi, connecting our Spotify playlist to the Sonos music system, and casting our Netflix to the TV. Aircon was effective (and welcome on a hot day). Because we arrived late on 23rd Dec (after 10pm) we didn’t get the chance to meet Livia and John, but had excellent communication with them, including recommendations for local restaurants which were open over the holiday season. They had also thoughtfully left maps and local information.
Overall, we were thrilled with the quality of the property, its location, and the whole experience of staying in Livia and John’s home, and if we come back to Melbourne we will definitively hope to stay again.