The host: Marco is an awesome guy to get to know. I felt welcome immediately upon arrival. He welcomed me with some Sicilian orange peel candy which was great. We shared dinner, stories, and of course drinks! Towels were provided. His English is great. He gave me ideas of things to do and see. I still have yet to complete them all as I was only there for a day and a half! He made dinner one evening (he likes to experiment with cooking) which was thoroughly enjoyable. On our last evening, we shared a shot of some Sicilian herbal liquor which was great. I hope to be able to see him again if he visits the states.

The space: The room was very cozy and warm. It was very quiet from inside and I had no trouble sleeping. The apartment was beautifully decorated with some vintage collectibles which gave the space a nice ambience. Very clean. The WiFi is very fast. Though not as fast as perhaps in the US, I was getting about 6-7 Mbps at 6ms ping from the room, which served my needs greatly. The one quirk (at least for me) was the arrangement of the shower, which is in the middle of the bathroom (against one of the walls) instead of on an edge or corner. This created a large area for the curtain to cover, which made it impossible to wrap around completely, so there was always exposure to the open space in the bathroom, forcing you keep the shower head in one direction and always be conscious of where the water was splashing. Not really a big issue, but may be uncomfortable for some.

The location: The location was quite close to a metro station, which made getting in and out of downtown Milan easy. Getting to the Milan main station was easy as well. I had a bit of trouble getting to the location because airbnb had dropped the pin in the wrong area. I suggest firming up the location a bit with Marco prior to arrival to make sure you get their without trouble. Once you see where it is, however, it’s very easy to find again. It’s close to some nice restaurants. I’m not sure how close it is to a supermarket since I didn’t go there, so I can’t comment on that. I never felt unsafe.

A side note is that Marco is a fairly light sleeper. This can possibly present a problem if you have to do things in the middle of the night (I had a work conference call the last night) and he has to do things during the day to disrupt his sleep cycle. Marco was extremely accommodating with my situation despite his own need, and we made it work out, but just be aware of this sensitivity if you need to regularly do things in the middle of the night.