Our stay at Filippo's place was mixed at best and was a really disappointing way to end our first trip to Italy. We were greeted by his sister in law who, when seeing there were two of us, promptly asked for €25 more using Google translate. We checked the booking and had mistakenly only selected one guest rather than two - obviously our mistake but I still find it a little strange for an airbnb to charge extra for two people to stay in a double bedroom. Anyway, we used the air bnb app to add another guest to the booking, which came to €18. I messaged Filippo and he accepted my request to alter the booking and the payment went through. I advised him to let his sister in law know of this change. Despite him acknowledging this, his sister in law and (we think) his brother were seemingly unaware of this as they followed my girlfriend (who was alone following my flight earlier in the morning) out of the apartment about a 10 min walk away to the bus station. His brother asked her twice for more money. This was distressing and not an ideal way to leave the apartment in the morning - being followed by a stranger asking for money that you have already paid. Whether it was miscommunication or a disingenuous wanting of more money or a bit of both we'll never know.. but either way it should not have happened. Filippo did apologise to me through the app several hours later which was appreciated, but only after trying to play down the whole event as just something that Italians do.
The apartment itself was nice, fairly small but enough space for two people for one night. He provided a few little pastries and there was a bit of milk left in the morning. There was also wifi which worked well - as far as I know the listing says that theres no wifi weirdly but there is and it works very well. There is AC in the kitchen but it didn't work well enough to make the bedroom cool and there was no fan so we only managed a few hours of sleep in between a lot of tossing and turning. The sound proofing is also terrible - the were people chatting in the room next door at 3:30am which we could hear very clearly and the main road is very noisy. So unless you're a deep sleeper, I would suggest factoring in the heat and noise when making a decision on whether to stay here, because at the end of the day the most important thing about a place to stay is really about getting a good night's sleep.
Sadly, there were no pizzerias open within walking distance on a saturday night which was frustrating so we settled with a dinner at the airport! There is a nice pastry shop within 2 mins walk away however, where we picked up some amazing sfogliatelle
Of course, the main selling point of this place is its proximity to the airport which is really useful. It took me less than 10 mins to walk to the airport at 4:45am.
In sum,
The PROS are:
Location
Wifi
Breakfast
TV
Kitchen facilities
The CONS are:
Confusion/deceit from the owner and his family - the vibe felt very much about making as much money as possible rather than what we're used to with airbnb in terms of people opening up their homes and properties to strangers
Noise
Heat of the bedroom
Price
One more thing to bear in mind is that according to airbnb policy, owners must state clearly, either in the listing or in messages, whether or not they will ask for extra charges (eg tourist taxes) upon arrival. If not, it is assumed that these are factored in to the listed price. So do not pay in cash anything to the owner or especially not anyone else. You can do everything on the app which means you and the host can dispute things clearly without confusion or dishonesty. Luckily we were not left out of pocket by the host and his family but we very nearly were.
To finish, this review is not about categorically denouncing this property and host - as I'm sure others have had positive experiences and may do in the future as well. Rather, I wanted to give an honest assessment of Filippo's place and the feelings we felt whilst there. I would not stay there again and would advise others to also consider places further out but to catch a taxi to/from the airport instead - this may work out as a very similar price but with more peace of mind.