PROS: great location. Situated inside a beautiful old building, a couple of minutes walk to Piazza Navona. Great restaurants very nearby, including the one right downstairs which I highly highly recommend. That was probably the best part of our stay here.
Big. Living and sleeping areas are very spacious. Kitchen and bathroom are tiny but that seems on par for Italy. The shower is quite large for Europe.
Unique. Sort of what you imagine an old Italian apartment to be like. However that does come with its cons:
CONS:
DIRTY. Floor is filthy. Our feet were black after walking around barefooted after showering. Stains on kitchen walls and outlets/light switches. All the light switches were grubby. Cobwebs all along ceiling. Wish I had taken pictures. The narrow staircase already mentioned in other reviews were also super dirty. Not their fault, but just a warning. It’s all old, but I don’t think that means the floor has to be dirty. You pay a cleaning fee but I don’t think it was actually cleaned, except maybe changing sheets and a quick scrub down of the toilet. Otherwise, it felt very neglected, cleanliness wise.
LOUD. So loud. Rome’s birds are plentiful and loud, including seagulls, which sound like a fat woman laughing. Which would be cool, if there was any sort of sound insulation around the windows but there isn’t. Noise from birds was at all time volume all night and wakes you up at 5 AM. Curtains are not lined and light streams through by 6. Combined with birds, I couldn’t sleep at all until I finally crashed from exhaustion and sleep deprivation (And liberal dosing of alcohol) the third night we were there. In addition to the birds, the great location also comes with 3 restaurants right downstairs. There was an opera one night, a loud accordion the next and I’m not sure what was on the third, because, as I mentioned, I was so exhausted by then, I crashed. You could hear every dish clink, everyone’s conversations. Usually started around 8 and ended around midnight. Would have been fine if we didn’t have small children. I really can’t overemphasize how loud it is.
HOT. AC unit is simply insufficient to cool a top story apartment, especially in mid-June. Might be fine during other seasons. We were also there during a historic heat wave. There is only one for the entire downstairs inside the living room, so the main bedroom didn’t have any real cooling and was suffocatingly hot. We used it for our luggage. We were told by Piers, who checked us in, that a third key on the ring needed to be used to turn on the AC but that we didn’t need to worry about it since it was already turned on. We contacted their customer service and were told, on the last day, the key did need to be used. But I don’t know. The unit was blowing cool air, just not enough. So I really feel it was on/working but too weak. It said 16 Celsius but the air coming out was just barely cool. It was pretty terrible, coming home to that after walking around a hot city all day.
Just a warning for anyone who has not used Airbnb in Italy before. Apparently many are run by companies. You don’t have a person living there/nearby, letting you in and answering your questions. Someone meets you to let you in and then afterward, you’re sort of on your own except communication through the Airbnb app. This is how it was with this place. They never responded to my request to have the floor cleaned (we have a 10 month old) and took a while to respond about the air conditioning.
Overall, it’s a neat place to stay, but I wouldn’t recommend to anyone with kids or who might be a light sleeper.