George was a very friendly, prompt, and helpful host. His apartment came with a lot of useful tools for tourists such as maps, taxi/take out/laundry etc information and phone numbers....as well as discounts at certain local facilities.
We are Australian and now live in Greece permanently so our trip to Athens was not for tourist reasons but for personal business. I would not recommend tourists stay here. Although it is a short walk to the train station, the location is terrible. I am very compassionate to others and am VERY comfortable in a diverse community, however it’s not ideal to have homeless people sleeping on your street if you are not as “adventurous” as we are. Additionally, there is no Greek cuisine available within a short walk. For us, as Australians, we loved the chance to get Middle Eastern and Indian takeaway! However, for tourists to Greece that’s probably not ideal.
The building itself was also not great. The common areas were very dirty and stained etc. The neighbours were also very very loud old drunken men. And the walls are very thin...so thin that we could plainly here them making calls on speakerphone and hearing both sides of the conversation.
Inside the apartment was newly renovated and mostly clean. Many of the glasses were not properly cleaned and the bottom of the curtain in the living room was mouldy. The kitchen was fine but there is tape holding together the countertop in front of the sink so any water splashed while doing dishes slowly leaks down the tape onto the floor creating a big puddle throughout the day. The bathroom is fine by Greek standards. However there was mould on the top and bottom corners of the shower.
The two WORST things though.....
The bathroom always smelled of sewage. Not strongly, but more than enough to be noticeable. It was less than ideal.
And the second thing....the hot water lasts less than 5 minutes. We timed it. There are instructions on how to use the hot water which we followed exactly. The first day we thought it was probably something we did wrong. But the second day we double checked and then timed it. Less than 5 minutes of hot water.
All of these things are outside of the control of the host. He was absolutely wonderful. However we will never stay there again and would be careful to recommend the place. We are very very seasoned travellers (our daughter has passports in 3 countries) so we were relatively comfortable with the situation but 99% percent of people wouldn’t be comfortable with the area.