Let’s start with the good.
Unique house with many beautiful details inside. Great beds. Nice showers. Extras for baby (although they initially tried to charge extra per day for this). Pretty well equipped kitchen. Location: fantastic for daily markets and easy walking around the city.
Now the not so great...
Location: not the fault of the owner but there is a (relatively new) bar below (great place and people open day and night) which was SO noisy at night and we used earplugs. Also the train is nearby and on Sunday we heard an 8am parade? Very noisy.
Crazy steep narrow spiral metal stairs to get onto the first floor (living room and kitchen) and again to go up and access all bedrooms.
Difficult layout if you want privacy as the three bedrooms are attached and access to bathroom and staircase mean going through master bedroom unless leaving outside door to narrow terrace unlocked to constantly walk outside on. It’s also quite dark inside the house without much natural lighting.
We were unfortunately unable to meet or even be in contact with Giuseppe and instead communicated with Sara. After booking and paying we were twice asked wrongly to pay extra in cash upon arrival for 1) use of baby cot- €70 2) twice charged for Catania tax. I’m sure others didn’t realize they pay in the initial payment and payed twice. Then charged €40 for early check in with no one to help us get the key from another location behind an unmentioned closed gate. Finally entered house- freezing cold with no heat on (and they knew what time we were arriving and with a baby when night time low is 5 degrees) and no directions to work central heating. Clogged kitchen sink I plunged and broken lightbulb. I informed them and didn’t get a thank you or bulb replacement. Other little details- barely any dish soap and filthy pan lids. They also need an updated thermostat as the old one made managing the heat very difficult.
Unfortunately I’ve found that houses run as a business rather than by the owner themselves fall short and in this case there were too many people involved as I wrote to Sara, had a phone number for someone else, had a different person arrive at the house (who never asked for the early check in money so we assumed we didn’t have to pay for a freezing cold house and no one there to meet and greet us or answer questions about heating and water- we did pay in the end after we arrived home and were told to pay) and Giuseppe was non existent. They need a welcome printout with clear directions for garbage, heat, laundry, phone numbers etc. This would have saved us a lot of headache.
Overall I wouldn’t write this place off completely, especially if you are planning to go out at night as you can be a part of the noise outside. It definitely is a central location and the house has an impressive and artistic quality to it. A bit pricey for low season and I would cringe to think of children walking up and down those steps. I hope for them to have more organized management in the future as this house deserves to be used and loved. Also, we loved Catania!