Perfect location to explore Ortigia. You are at less than 50 meters from Piazza Del Duomo and a few minutes walking distance from many good restaurants. Good bedrooms downstairs and very spacious and great bedroom upstairs; good bathroom facilities and a small little terrace ideal for having a drink on sunny days. All very clean and tidy. We asked Francesco for an early check in but he explained it was not possible as there was someone checking out that day and the cleaning ladies would be there until 1 pm but he arranged for us to be able to leave our luggage and collect the keys early so we could explore the city and we appreciated the gesture.
There are nevertheless two negative points I need to pinpoint: number 1 is that on the main bedroom upstairs you may hear street noises; as there is a restaurant just underneath the flat on our first day we could hear a few people chatting until around 1 am and around 5 am the rubbish trucks collecting glass made a huge noise waking us up so that day we did not sleep very much; however it seems that the people on the ground-floor bedrooms did not hear anything.
The second negative point, which for me was a big issue is that on the check out day, there was no cold water upstairs so the water was boiling hot and impossible to take a shower or wash our hands and faces and on the ground floor there was no water AT ALL! Thankfully we all had taken showers the evening before ... just imagine if I had decided (which was almost the case) to go for my morning jog that day ( I sweat a lot) ... this would have been hugely inconvenient. We had to use our bottle waters to brush our teeth and there was no water to flush down the toilets (so you can imagine when everyone uses the bathroom in the morning how this can be a big issue) it felt a little like back in camping holidays.
Francesco correspondence was quick enough and he went to look into the matter but the issue did not get resolved before our checkout time and therefore we were unable to have a shower before heading back to Catania and the airport.
We understand the issue was external so not something that happens normally but when renting a place, we should not find ourselves in this situation. Francesco wanted to offer us a bottle of wine for the inconvenience but we were already gone by then but I believe that in this situation, a partial refund of our last day would have been in good order (I was with my mother and mother in law who are over 60 years old) as not having water is a big issue and very inconvenient.
In any case, we enjoyed our stay in Francesco flat and Ortigia is a beautiful place to visit.