Casa Lawa is an enchanting, remote property in the foothills of the Etna, full of potential, as a retreat destination, or as a culinary attraction, utilizing its fruit and nut orchards and the enthusiastic hosts.
If you wish to explore Sicily this could be a stopover. It's not suitable as an explorer's homebase for a longer stay, since much time is needed to reach the location along narrow and winding mountain roads.
We were early adopters for this start-up management team, staying for two weeks. We were disappointed in our expectations based on what turned out to be a misleading AirBnB webpage. To our surprise the owner left town two days after we arrived, leaving care to a new, temporary, employee with meagre hospitality skills and no knowledge of the location – that's where the startup comparison breaks down.
The webpage says it has a kitchen and a shared outdoor kitchen, suggesting that the indoor kitchen would not be shared. But in fact there is no kitchen that a guest can call his own, nor is one renting the "entire place." Since it felt like the kitchen was the host's domain and there was no orientation on how to use the space, or a dedicated space to store our food, we felt awkward using it.
To our consternation we were told at arrival we could not cook meat dishes. The website should stipulate this.
There are steps in the house, it's not single-level. The five or six steps to the sleeping area are narrow stepping stones without handrails, a risky descend with a rough stone floor below. Owner's access to the half-basement laundry room is through the guest room. In fact, the layout of the farmhouse mixes host and rental space. However, with future opening of the middle bedroom suite these safety and privacy issues could be addressed.
Parking is on-street, not off-street as the website says, with access to the rented space from the street. Wifi did not reach into the rented room.
Our favorite spot was the outside deck with table/parasol and a view of the orchard and the Ionian Sea in the distance. That's where breakfast was served. We were blessed by great weather and made the best of the situation.