Natia’s place is located on the fourth floor of a typical old building (no elevator) in the heart of Florence. It has high ceilings which makes it feel airy, even though the apartment itself is pretty small. Large windows provide plenty of sunlight and fresh air. The place was VERY clean (and making an old place feel clean is no small feat!).
We were able to do a self check-in which was very convenient.
There are two bedrooms and a small living/dining/kitchenette combo with a small sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table (rarely seen in Italians airbnbs). There was also a decent size kitchen table in that space.
There were also two bedrooms and a bathroom with a generous size shower. One of the bedrooms has a queen size bed, the other one has a king (actually two separate twin mattresses on one bed frame) and a pull out sofa that is a full at the most (may be a bit smaller than a standard US full size). The listing says the living room sofa is a sleeper; while we never opened it, it looked pretty small, so maybe another full.
We traveled as a party of four: mom, dad, 10 year old child, and grandpa. Grandpa stayed in the smaller bedroom, the rest of us in the larger one. Any more people would feel cramped to us (not to say it would bother others, everyone is different).
Having the washer was a huge plus as we travelled throughout Italy for multiple weeks and needed to do laundry.
The kitchenette was rather small and we ended up eating out, especially as it was so hot, and there were tons of restaurants around. The SMAG retro fridge was super cute!
Unfortunately, the June weather was not conducive to staying at a place without an air conditioner. After being in a heat of the summer all day and walking up four floors of stairs, it was brutal to enter the very hot place even with the fans provided.
About the fans, there were four: three smaller/weaker ones and one larger, more powerful. We had one small in grandpa’s bedroom, two small in master (one directed at the kid’s bed and one at master bed) and the large fan in the common area. The large fan’s motor was always very hot when running and produced burning smell the first day, so we were too nervous to leave it on while sleeping. We informed Natia about it but got no resolution. The small fans were not enough to cool us off at night, unfortunately, as the nights were extremely hot. Keeping the windows open would have solved the problem but it wasn’t possible due to the noise from the bar(s) downstairs (until at least 4-5 am on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).
One other problem we encountered had to do with two power outlets coming out of the walls and exposing wires. We found the outlet in the kitchenette taped to the wall using regular tape; it fell out as soon as we plugged in a phone charger. The other one was next to the bed in master bedroom. It was out of the wall, with wires completely exposed, at our arrival. We informed Natia and were told it’d be fixed. It did not get fixed within our 3-night stay but it was the weekend, so maybe it got fixed later. This is a definite safety issue, especially if you plan to travel with small children.
Also, the water in the shower was behaving funky, the temperature would fluctuate between hot, perfect, and cold without moving the faucet. Not sure if it was a wrong installation or just a peril of an old building plumbing system.
Lastly, we had a few instances where we’d ask a question or report an issue and the response wouldn’t come till next day; some things were never responded to. Nothing major happened, so no biggie; just noting that responsiveness of the host is not the strongest part of this listing. :)
All in all, we’d consider staying at Natia’s place again as the location was really great, but it’d have to be in cooler months. We’d opt for a place with AC in the summer.