We experienced home-stays at three different places during our first Italy trip . While the other two were excellent, Maison Orange, unfortunately, evokes mixed feelings.

But let's start with the brighter side of this place.

This home-stay has an excellent location, right behind the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Vecchio and barely a minute's walk to the Bargello Museum. This strategic location can't get any better. It saves time and allows immense flexibility being right in the heart of Florence. It is spoiled with choices of several good eating joints, wine bars and supermarkets. The neighborhood is safe, clean and tourist-friendly.

The room is quite spacious with an unexpectedly huge cabinet that easily accommodates a lot of luggage. The private washroom, just outside the bedroom, is better than the hotels. Both the bedroom as well as the bathroom are well-stocked with various items that one needs during the stay.

This home stay, as clearly mentioned in the profile, does not provide any breakfast. But we could bring outside food for consumption. We were provided one shelf in the fridge to store our food. The accommodation is on the first floor of an old building, so elevators could not be expected.

Although the amenities were good and the location was excellent, we failed to have a good start. After we booked the place, the hosts changed the check-in time due to their personal reasons to 5 PM. We happily accepted it thinking that we would be able to keep our luggage (as it happens in all cases) if we arrive early. But strangely, Alex informed us that there is no such facility. I could understand that they were not in a position to provide us early entry but this is the first time in more than 20 years of my travel experience that I found that the host is directing us to a commercial baggage deposit facility.

They met us at 4 PM and indeed offered us wine and light snacks. But we were already in a rush to go out, otherwise an entire day would have been wasted. I read reviews that the hosts were "flexible" with others, may be it was our bad luck that they were rather inflexible to our only requirement.

For those who arrive early and want to hit the streets running, this may not be the ideal place or be ready to spend money on storing luggage elsewhere.

They kept a dossier at room which mentions, among other things, that the guests would also have to deposit the garbage at the designated point on the streets.

If you want to stay with an Italian family to experience their culture then this is not the perfect place as the hosts are hardly ever there. It is not a home stay in the full sense of the term but a commercial BnB. Natasha, however, helped us to get a cab for the station on the last day.