Unfortunately not a good experience all around. We booked 3-nights, but stayed only one and then bolted for a lovely nearby hotel (at about the same cost/night). Rather than “Delightful, bright, and dreamy,” we found this apartment to be rather dark and dismal, nothing like the brightly lit photos in the listing . Apart from this subjective light/dark issue, there are no “falsehoods” in the listing… but definitely need to pay careful attention to every review comment, which we did not. Many other guests have raised similar concerns, whether or not they had a good stay.
In particular:
1. Dropbox and key access worked OK. But we shared the experiences of some other guests who found the cluster of multiple boxes a bit confusing, especially on a dark street at night. Fussy to open the box. One key only; this didn’t cause problems for us, but might have been a nuisance if we had stayed. The street entrance was quite uninviting, even a bit creepy
2. Once you enter the door from the street, there is a stark alley leading to the stairway entrance; there are rat-traps laid out in the alley; I suppose you need these in any old city, didn’t see any rats though
3. Entering the stairwell, the carpet is filthy, stained, pretty gross (host claimed this was not their responsibility, but I would expect this to be reasonably maintained by all the tenants)
4. There is a very tight, step, steel spiral staircase; needed to climb two flights to get to the apartment door. We are pretty strong and fit, but still found it to be quite an ordeal lugging our baggage up these stairs. Not a pleasant experience after a long travel day. This wouldn’t have mattered as much if traveling very light, but we had 2-weeks worth of luggage.
5. Entering the apartment at night, my heart sunk: The kitchen was very dark. We put on every light we could find, and it was still barely usable as a kitchen. Had we tried to prepare a meal, it would have been difficult and unpleasant. With daylight the next morning, it was of course much better, but still much darker than the brilliantly lit listing photo suggested
6. There is inadequate light in the bathroom, except during day with shade wide open. Difficult to shave or apply make up
7. The new wooden floor is very nice. But there are several steps down from the bathroom/kitchen to the front bedroom. At night, these are invisible, unlit, and treacherous. Be sure to put on the hall light or use your flashlight if getting up to use bathroom
7. The bedrooms are very nice. We used the front/main bedroom only and the bed/bedding were very comfortable.
8. There is a lot of street noise in this bedroom. It is right above the cafe outdoor sitting area, so quite loud until late evening (wont matter if you stay up late). But it is also over a very busy street with a lot of bus/truck traffic that started around 4-5 AM, so don’t count on sleeping in.
9. There are windows and what they call a “French balcony” overlooking a small, grungy interior courtyard (more like a light-well). There is no curtain or shade, so you are in full view of the other apartments facing that courtyard. If there was a curtain drawn, the apartment would be terribly dark, even during the day
10. This was in a good location, no question.
11. Host was accessible and polite, but unwilling to provide any compensation for the 2 nights we didn’t use. Air B&B made amends to their credit
This is the first and only bad review we’ve ever left in many years using AB&B. Might have been less harsh but for the intransigence of the host in making even a token offer to compensate for our troubles. I’m sure there will be a rebuttal from the host, and fair-enough. If we are unreasonable or out of line, perhaps that rebuttal will put the next guest at ease. Caveat emptor