There was much to like about this apartment and we spent an enjoyable week there, but I wouldn’t want to return.
We appreciated convenient and popular location, within walking distance of many key sights and public transportation. The nearby canal is lovely and the Jed Thai restaurant on the corner is worth traveling from a distance to experience: we ate there twice. We didn’t meet our host, Jesper. Communications from him were always quick and friendly; however, we did have to initiate proceedings and it would have been nice to be sent the check-in information and lock box code without having to ask for it while standing outside the gate.
The apartment was spacious and most of our evenings were quiet and uninterrupted, until the end of our stay, when the partying groups took over. When we checked in, we found the place rather dirty and bleak. All of the dishes, glasses, and cutlery that we first used were unclean, as though the previous guests hadn’t operated the dishwasher properly. There was baked-on food on the stovetop and inside the oven, as well as on the pans in the cupboard. There were open packets of cereal on the countertop and in the cupboards, a bag of biscuits, and open bags of food in the freezer.
The apartment had the feeling of being filled hastily with cheap furnishings and then not looked after properly. Most of the mini-blinds were bent or had missing or damaged rods. Screws lay on the windowsill in the bathroom. The cover was missing from the washing machine. Only two of the four plastic dining chairs at the dinner table were stable and the bed was an uncomfortable Ikea model, inches from the floor.
Although not a requirement of a holiday rental, the apartment was almost entirely lacking of any ornament or personality, which made it a disheartening place to stay. Apart from cushions on the sofa bed, there were no pictures on the walls, no clocks, no plants, no guidebooks, nothing. It was the opposite of Danish hygge. We ended up buying some tea lights and flowers to make our stay feel a bit more comforting.
We did have most of the essentials we needed during our stay, but some things were missing. We had no kettle, though we could see that the adjacent, identical apartments each had one, and there was no sign of a smoke alarm, despite the listing saying there was one. When we arrived, many of the consumables such as dishwashing liquid, bathroom handsoap, toilet rolls, and bin liners were almost empty. We had to buy new sponges for the kitchen because the ones provided were old and grubby.
Despite the details above, we enjoyed our visit, especially sitting at the outside table in the evenings by candlelight. We were fortunate that there were no other guests until the final night of our visit, but when two enthusiastic groups arrived and took over, we lost our privacy. In the morning, we found ourselves making eye contact from the breakfast table with a group of women smoking in the courtyard.
To summarise: this place is suitable for large groups but would not be one I would want to return to. In any case, the apartment needs some attention and a good clean, though we did leave it cleaner than we found it.