Giovanni and his wife, are top notch!
If you are looking for a stay at NICE HOUSE or HAPPY HOUSE, you have found great hosts and a great location! My wife and I absolutely loved Avola and the surrounding area.
We stayed for three weeks at NICE HOUSE. It was gourgious inside. There are 12 foot high slightly domed ceilings with beautiful gold trim around them. There is one bedroom and a kitchen. The bedroom's decor and furiniture reminds me of a 1930's classic look. You are transported into a palace, as you lay in bed and marvel at the chandelier and gold trim around it. You could not get such an experience of the ambiance, unless you were staying at a hotel well over $500 a night. The fact that the price is one of the bests in the area and all of Sicily, is amazing.
The kitchen is also beautiful and clean. The dishwasher is a nice touch. From the pictures, I wasn't sure if it would be big enough for my tatstes, but I was surprised, it was bigger than I thought. The Kitchen floor tiles were classically italian and beautiful.
The bathroom is nice too. Taking into account that the place is really situated for 2 people, the bathroom is nice.
There was a fold up bed in the fall way, to be used for a thrid person.
Since we stayed there for three weeks, we used Giovanni's bicycles during that time. For the first week, we got around Avola with just the bicycles. That would be great for those acustomed to cycling around town. I personally found it challenging to cycle around Avola, but really, it wasn't that bad, I'm just not used to being in with traffic in such narrow streets.
We rented a car for the next two weeks. NICE HOUSE was great for that. There is an avaliable parking space next to NICE HOUSE. We rented a Fiat 500, and I just loved it. Driving in this area was not nearly as bad as I heard Italy was. It was very pleasent. But keep in mind, I used my GPS the entire time to get around Avola. Many times I just walked instead of taking the car in Avola, because of all the very narrow streets. Avola is built on a hexigon, not a square, and it can be very confusing.
There are busses that connect the surrounding towns, and they are very easily to use. Interbus has their schedual online, the other, Etna, does not, but Giovanni and his wife left us with a packet of all the brouchers and maps of the surrounding areas, as well as the bus scheduals (but I think they might have been an older schedual).
Finally, we want to say that you can't go wrong with Giovanni, he is determined to meet your requests. He was always avaliable by txt message.