Marinella's apartment near Navigli/Colonne is great! It's in a safe area and is close to restaurants and cafes. Because it's well within walking distance from Milano's city center (10-12 minutes to the Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele; about 20 minutes to Brera), we never had to purchase public transportation. Additionally, the studio was clean and Marinella even left us water and snacks for our stay! The only drawback was that Marinella does have cats and I wish I would have known this before I booked as I am allergic (it may have been in the booking, but I couldn't read it because it was in Italian :)

Marinella also had maps available for us to navigate the city, which was very kind. She was in town during our stay, but she made sure that we had someone to contact if we had any questions.