Don’t check in on Sunday! Or if you do, make sure you know precisely when you’re going to arrive. If your travel plans are disrupted for any reason you will be subject to an extra fee and a surprising amount of rudeness. We drove from a long distance, checked in periodically about our ETA, but got significantly delayed by traffic. When we arrived to Rome, before checking in, we rushed to the Colosseum with time-slotted tickets. We notified Francesca, who then threatened us with the prospect of not being able to check in at all if we didn’t rush to the apartment because it was Sunday and the house manager’s schedule was inflexible. This was the first time we’d been told of this. We were then told by her son we’d have to pay an “inconvenience” fee of 30€ in order to check in—this was another revelation. Mind you, we were still within the window for check-in written in the instructions, yet we were being fined AND scolded. And when we made a plea about not having to pay the extra money, Francesca saw the need to exaggerate the number of times our “plans” had changed— ie the number of times we communicated about being delayed—and suggested we’d somehow been disrespectful. It was all quite astonishing, unexpected and an unfortunate greeting that sadly cast a cloud over an otherwise lovely place.