Fantastic Apartment, Fantastic Location, Fantastic Hosts!
My husband and I have stayed in Air B&B's in six cities in four countries - Alessandro & Azadeh's place is the best we've ever experienced!
The location - the apartment is in the perfect location. That photo of the Duomo from the window is completely accurate, you are literally 100 meters from the Dome! Your proximity to shopping, restaurants and other attractions is phenomenal. You cannot ask for better in Florence! We covered a lot of ground in the city from crossing Ponte Vecchio to enter the Oltrano region to the Florentine food mall, nothing was more than a 30 minute stroll.
The hosts - A&A gave us walking instructions from the train to the apartment, they were easy to follow and as promised less than a 15 minute walk - the hardest part is getting on the correct road from the train station, you might want to grab the free map from the TI at Santa Maria Novella just to get your bearing =). Azadeh responded promptly to my Air B&B messages both before and during the trip. When we arrived Azadeh was waiting and had a map for us. She marked main destinations and favorite places for meals, coffee and apertivo. We followed several of her recommendations and were always glad we did! We were in Florence over a national holiday and she even went out of her way to help us verify when the main sights would be open! We could not have asked for better, Azadeh exceeded all of our expectations!
The apartment - This was the most comfortable apartment we stayed in in Italy. The charm of the apartment was just as promised with beautiful exposed beams and brickwork. While the apartment had a rustic charm it had modern, comfortable amenities. I really appreciated the mosquito repellant plug-ins, they worked very well and I'm going to order some for my home! Having the windows open in the afternoon and evening was wonderful and we were able to do laundry easily following Azadeh's instructions. The shower had good water pressure which I appreciated! The apartment also has an elevator so even if you have a lot of luggage or small children you can enjoy a rustic apartment without a terrifying set of stairs!
Something to note: The clearance in the sleeping loft is low! This is noted in the listing and Azadeh reiterated this a few times when we arrived. Despite her and my repeated reminders my 6'3" husband did give himself a good bump on the head. Keep the head-space in mind if you're tall, I'm 5'5" and also came close to hitting my head more than once. =P
We would absolutely stay with Alessandro & Azadeh again and we will recommend this apartment to friends visiting Florence. An amazing apartment in an amazing city with amazing hosts!