This was our first visit to Sicily and Gianfranco and his lovely wife gave us such an amazing, warm welcome to Palermo and to the island. It's been a long time since I've encountered such warm and friendly hospitality - we can't think of a better first impression!
Communication with Gianfranco was absolutely excellent - he gave super-quick responses and accurate information throughout. He arranged an airport transfer for us - will worth the very reasonable price and took all the hassle out of arriving and we even did a little bit of sight-seeing en route to the apartment. Gianfranco clearly loves Palermo and his enthusiasm is infectious! I believe he can also organise sightseeing trips too, might be worth checking out if you don't have transport or can't be bothered with a car in the city (see below).
The apartment is slightly north of the historical city centre, but still conveniently located - we simply walked the 30 minutes or so home, via local neighbourhoods and markets. The Zisa Palace and ZAC Contemproray Art Gallery are literally around there corner, as well as important amenities like a Carrefour Supermarket, Pizza restaurant and other restaurants (though we didn't get to try them, as they were still on summer holidays when we were there).
The apartment is very comfortable and charmingly decorated, with lots of local tourist information (in different languages) and thoughtfully supplied with basic kitchen needs, for the couple of nights we ate at home and enjoyed the lovely warm night air from Gianfranco's rooftop terrace. First time visitors to Palermo should be aware that it is a bustling - and therefore quite noisy - city (as mentioned in previous reviews) and so you do hear some of the traffic noise from the street outside, but the overall ambiance lot the apartment is tranquil and cosy. Visitors with mobility issues should note that are a couple of sets of stairs inside the apartment too - one to the upstairs kitchen/ terrace and also up to there second bedroom. Our fan broke one night and we spent quite a warm night in the second bedroom, but Gianfranco quickly replaced it with a new one.
Our Palermo visit was actually at the start of a longer, driving holiday in Sicily and Gianfranco so kindly dropped us off to collect our rental car and then we were able to find some free parking in the area around the apartment, from where we were easily able to get out of the city for a couple of day trips. However, we would not recommend anyone actually drive around the city centre (life is too short!) and I'm sure Gianfranco would say that it all that time sitting in traffic would be much better spent exploring his fascinating city. We are already looking forward to our next visit!