While Francesco’s place has a lot of lovely qualities, it ultimately didn’t work out for us. We had reserved 3 nights and ended up leaving late the 2nd evening and transferred to hotel for our other 2 nights in Florence.
Pros: it’s a very cute spacious flat with gorgeous views from both the bedroom and, even better, the 360 degree view from the terrace. Watching the sunrise from the terrace was breathtaking! The bed is comfortable. Sheets and towels were cozy. Francesco was kind and helpful when he greeted us, left a supply of fresh fruit and wine and recommended a couple sights that helped us enjoy our trip.
Cons: It was a little dusty with dying flowers left out. A slight musty smell upon arrival. The bathroom, while overall spacious, has a very small shower stall. My 6ft tall husband could not comfortably shower in it without leaving the doors open and having to mop up water after. Nothing that would have bothered us too much were it not for the unlucky heatwave while we were there. Which brings me to our only real complaint: The place doesn’t really have AC as advertised. In more moderate weather, the situation may have been sufficient but we were there during an particularly intense summer heatwave and it became unbearable. The AC was just a small unit in the bedroom that (upon arrival) only mitigated the heat in that one room and didn’t help the rest of the flat. This meant that the bathroom didn’t get any cooling. It was hard to keep the hose connected to the wall and some of the warm air would spill back into the place. By our first evening it was better to just open windows. On the second day, however, we came back from morning touring to find it very warm and a sour smell permeated from the laundry area. We tried to turn the AC on to take an afternoon nap and it completely shorted out, actually making the room hotter and smellier. We left for dinner and came back to the unit reading that it was 93 degrees inside and the smell worsening still, which is when we decided to call it and move to a hotel.
Of course, we realize that the 100+ degree heat is out of the ordinary and don’t blame our host. To his credit, he did offer us a partial refund for the unused nights.