Even before we arrived at Maria's place, we felt warmly welcomed. Maria was available to answer all of our questions and very responsive. For example, she provided recommendations for local gyms and cafés and even graciously offered to make a restaurant reservation for us.
As for her place, it is a third floor walk up above a wine store. The hallway up to the apartment is a little grubby (it could use fresh paint and a cleaning) but once you open the door to her apartment, all of that is forgotten. Her apartment is light, bright and immaculately clean. The apartment is well appointed and the furnishings are comfortable for the most part. By this I refer to three unusable chairs. Two of the four dining room chairs are so aged that the springs held up by bungee cords extend to the floor and an armchair in the bedroom lacked a back cushion and a seat. The dining room chair situation would matter if there were more than two guests.
The bedroom upstairs is large and accessed by a lovely spiral staircase with wide easy to use steps. The bed was a tad firm, but relatively comfortable. The bathroom is small but renovated (it seemed like it had radiant heating, which was great). There was, for example not much space in the shower for turning around and my husband and I are pretty slender. Since we had been traveling a week already, we were delighted to have access to the combo washer and dryer, which is also located in the bathroom. We had to You Tube how to work it and inadvertently set a washer cycle when we intended a dry cycle. Thus, I would recommend that Maria consider developing a simple step-by-step guide for users who may be unfamiliar with these units.
The location was ideal. It's located in the downtown area near to elegant shops, cafés and restaurants and in easy walking distance of several key attractions and the metro, which we took to the airport. A few nights were a tad noisy, particularly our last night which was a Thursday. It appeared to be a party night. Thus, there were lots of loud talking and laughing from passers by late at night (11:30 pm) and in the wee hours of the morning. They were audible over my ear plugs, but this could have been a fluke. In general, the street noises were tolerable for us. We're both light sleepers and so noise matters to us.
All in all, we enjoyed staying at Maria's lovely and bright space and very much appreciated her warmth via email and hospitality. We would stay there again and recommend that our family and friends do so.