Staying in Mario's apartment was wonderful experience for me, my wife and my daughter during our vacation in Europe in May 2012.
Mario and his wife were very helpful to give all advice, detailed planning, and even offerring to pick us up in train station before we started our Europe trip. We are very appriciated to allow us changing the dates we planned to stay (we messed up arrival and departure dates!). On the date of our arrival, we were picked up by his wife Anne in bus station with almost last minutes communication. The preparation for the guest arrival was excellent, include detail bus train schedul, nearby grocery stores, restraurants, internet, maps, universal adapters, even two bottles of wine, water and juice. We were also offerred to bring us to nearby Tuscan villages and bearby grocery shopping. The next morning, Anne sent us their home fresh made piza and desert. It was really nice to enjoy it in the apartment.
The apartment is very clean, roomy, sunny, and quite. There is real queen bed in the bedroom. Additional bed was set up for my daughter, with option to stay in pullout sofa bed in kitchen/dining room. All other travel related room/funiture/sheet/bedding were clean and functional.
As described, the aprtment is very very closed to regional train station (5 minutes walk to the platform) and bus station (4 minutes walk). The bus is more flexible and more frequent, but it takes longer time (20 minutes) to Florence center. The train (two stops, about 9 minutes) is less frequent, but very realiable. It is less convinient, but we view it as positive. It alerts us to follow the time, therefore we had more time enjoying downtown.