We planned a 2 week trip to Europe to primarily visit Paris and Amsterdam areas. We decided to squeeze in 2 days / 3 nights in Belgium as it is between France and Netherlands and we wanted to take advantage of it to explore a new country. We decided to rent in Gent as it is ideally located to make quick day trips to Brugge, Bruxelles and Antwerpen all of which are less than an hour away by train which is 50% cheaper on weekends. We couldn't explore Antwerpen due to lack of time, but renting Simela's place helped us spend a day each to explore Gent, Brugge and Bruxelles
Communicating with Simela was very easy. She is prompt and detailed in her responses. Check-in, check-out and parking instructions were perfect and it went very smoothly. Simela also frequently texted to make sure we were doing okay
Simela's place is probably the best of our 7 Airbnb rentals in Europe. The apartment is modern and spacious and has some tasteful modern touches. It has pretty much everything you need even plugs with 2 USB ports to charge your phone. The beds were comfortable. Separate bath and toilet helped as we were a party of 3. The apartment has nice canal views - the canal looks better from the apartment than from the street. The apartment has a a high end Epson 3700 projector hooked up with the latest Apple TV to project a 120 inch image on a white wall. Usually we don't care about TV or DVD entertainment while traveling but we did enjoy this projector setup in the mornings for a couple of hours. The washer and dryer in the apartment are new and modern and it was a relief for us as our other European rentals had old washers and dryers that looked like they should be in a museum and not in a home
In the interest of providing a well rounded review, I should add that the apartment is about a mile away from Gent Centrum which is the best part of Gent and it is where you will spend most if not all your time. While Gent Centrum looks great, outside of it, Gent is just OK. You will see a lot of paper and plastic trash on the road that will likely never get cleared
Simela appears to be a perfectionist like me and I have a couple of suggestions to make her apartment even better:
1. Provide a bigger board and a smaller iron
2. Painting the projection wall with projector paint or a screen that filters light coming from the side will blow the guests away
Overall I highly recommend Simela's place. It is perfect for exploring all the major cities in Vlaanderen