The place is well situated within the city. It is a comfortable apartment, and of decent size, but the kitchen is VERY TINY, which explains why there are no photos of its entirety. On the countertop you can only fit one small appliance at a time (espresso maker, toaster, coffee maker, water boiling pot). There is no oven and no microwave oven, although one of the photos shows a microwave below the counter. This is very deceptive. We wanted to have dinner at this place, since it advertises a kitchen, but without an oven or micro, and with very limited space we were not able to do so. There is a gas burner and only a very small cigarette lighter available, which works with difficulty. When lighting the gas burner your fingers get singed because of the lighter is so small and you have to keep the finger on it for the gas to catch.
The walls along the entry hallway and stairs are dirty and marked, giving the impression that you are in the slums.
Francesca manages this apartment, along with 20 others, and the apartment is owned by someone other than Francesca, so I assume she rents it to run the Airbnb. Although she is a good communicator, the apartment was not well inspected when the last person left it, and when we moved in a power extension cord was missing. We also discovered that the shower head was broken. Since there is only one electric outlet in the kitchen, and it is below the countertop, I had to be in my knees to make coffee, or toast, because the appliances’s power cord was not long enough to reach from the countertop to the plug below. Both issues were taken care of the following day. I believe they should have been taken care of before we moved in.
Milena, one of Francesca’s assistants, was pleasant and tried to take care of the discrepancies. She greeted us at the entrance, when we arrived, brought us up and described some of the functions.
There is a towel rack In the bathroom, for drying towels and cloths, but no heat is provided for it. The Smart TV boasts the BBC site, but we were not able to access it because the instructions to do so are in Italian. I mentioned this to Francesca but she did not offer to explain how to access the BBC, or other English speaking news stations. Perhaps the place was intended only for Italian speaking people. I finally figured it out, for BBC and CNN, but broadcasts from these channels are pre-recorded. There is no current news delivered. For that she needs to have Sky, or some other service.
Among Airbnb places there are those that are charming, where the hosts want to to make you feel ‘at home’, and there are those that are operated strictly for business sake. This place belongs in the second category, which is unfortunate.