The apartment is spacious, comfortable with an old-world charm, in an excellent location. We enjoyed taking breakfast on the quiet balcony off the kitchen.
We stayed in the apartment for eight days. In that time the water heating system failed completely four times, leaving us without hot water to shower. The first time it happened, Catarina (our landlady) suggested we ‘press the button’ – on a boiler that was in an attic, visible through a gap in the ceiling, only accessible by ladder, and there was none visible. When we said it was out of reach, she sent her husband over to ‘fix’ it. On the fourth occasion, our last day, we were present when her husband came, and removed a ladder from behind a dangerously heavy loose plank. On that occasion, he admitted he didn’t know why it kept breaking down, and would get an expert to fix it. He is a very courteous man, and was apologetic. We never met Catarina. We felt they should have got a professional to look after the problem at least after the second occurrence. We also felt Catarina, as the landlady, should have made some attempt to acknowledge the serious inconvenience we experienced.
Another minor point: there was only one bathmat for two bathrooms. I asked Catarina to send another one over. She said that all requests had to be made online, despite the fact that we were talking to each other on the phone! As we stayed there for eight nights, it would also have been nice to have had more than two towels each.
If that major issue with the hot water is fixed and if there was a more responsive service to reasonable requests, this would be a very attractive offer.