My wife, my sister and I spent four nights over New Year at Guisi’s place in Trastevere. If you want to be at the heart of the neighborhood, this ground floor apartment is ideal - you step out of the front door and there are amazing restaurants all around, and a real ‘buzz’ of people.
Our check-in experience was easy. Rosangela texted us shortly before our arrival and stayed in touch as we were on our way from the airport. She met us at the door, and gave us a thorough overview of the apartment and all its amenities, as well as directions to a nearby supermarket where we could get milk and other groceries, and a sense of the local transportation options. Her English was very good which helped our extremely limited Italian.
Guisi’s place is obviously a rental and not ‘lived in’ - the decoration is sparse, there is only a pull-out couch that seats two people in the living room, and we had to pull in a wicker chair from the kitchen for the three of us to sit down and hang out together. It doesn’t have a “homey” feel about it, and some things need attention that you may not notice if you don’t spend a lot of time there. We loved that it had two bathrooms; however, the shower head in one of them was clogged and the little water that it did give out leaked in all directions, making it unusable. Little things like the cover plates for the light switches in the other bathroom that fell off every time you tried to turn the light on. Or no lamp in the second bedroom.
The beds were firm but comfortable, he left plenty of towels as well as small bottles of shampoo and body wash, and the kitchen had some basic supplies such as oil, salt and pepper and instant coffee. We didn’t cook in the flat (who needs to when there are so many excellent restaurants within a two minute walk) but enjoyed his espresso pot for coffee in the morning. We highly recommend the gelato/crepe place to the left as you leave, and the chocolate shots at the book shop to the right. One final hint: do make reservations at restaurants if you can. Otherwise, Grazia & Graziella is worth the wait outside.