Let's start with the pros:
Amazing location. The house is located in a quiet neighbourhood and so close to the beach! The beaches nearby are beautiful and secluded. The places to eat are superb. We also loved the traditional Sicilian food you find at Casa Rosa, right next to the house.
The people, the fish, the nature! All enough to visit this part of Sicily.
The house has a closed gate so a child can move around. You park your car in the shade.
And that's it.
And that's pretty good! But is it worth the money we paid and the issues with the host we faced? No.
The cons are: don't go here. I will explain carefully:
We had to leave 5 days before the end of the reservation. That's how frustrated we were with everything.
The house of the pictures is just not there - yes the setting is almost the same but the house has not been taken care of. The outside table, chairs, hammock were dirty. The rest of the furniture is old, has not been updated and the details? No, no care for that. It was not clean inside, we found flies, mosquitos, dust everywhere.
The kitchen had almost nothing to cook. A mere wooden spoon was not to be found.
Cupboards dirty, messy.
The bedrooms smelled of mold and the annex was a hot and stuffy 3rd bedroom.
We overlooked all of this - plus the 3 rusty bikes we were given that we couldn't even dream of using! They are many years old, not almost "new" like the host mentioned - and we kept doing our thing and thinking ok, well, nothing we can do now.
One day that the internet was not working she sent some repairmen to check because we had found a faulty plug that we explained to her had been damaged before and almost gave us a shock.
They show up more than 2 hours after what was scheduled and we end up being left with them alone. We were upset because it was dinner time and we said we did not want to be alone with them ( we don't speak italian)
SOMEHOW ( I have no clue how they did that ) the key in the gate gets broken and she tells us we did it on purpose. Not just that we did it, but that it was some revenge!?
I cannot even explain the madness of accusing us of such a thing.
We left almost immediately after, as she also began to hint that we caused other damages in the house. I wish I could share photos here so you can see what the place looked like.
I have been using airbnb for years and so has my friend that was with me. We have never ever in our lives experienced such manipulation. It's frustrating to no end the damages she is claiming and we actually lost money having to leave because we had to book another house (that was very lovely).
If you are in the region go somewhere else. This house needs serious cleaning and work done. If this house was presented here with the real photos we would have not gone, but it would still make a lovely beach home if only the host cared about it. Obvious concern seems to be money - she does not care about the house.
And this is the truth of the situation. As someone with experience in real estate I can say that it's incredible sad when people don't value their homes, just want an easy buck.