Host:
Andrea was a very nice host. No doubts about that. He bought a water boiler when we asked if we could have one. 5 of 5 stars for Andrea.
Apartment / Owner:
- 2 of 5 stars for the apartment because the sum of flaws just got too annoying.
- The owner should live in his own apartment for a week to see which shortcomings need to be rectified. In my impression less than 1000 Euros would be necessary to fix some major issues and nuisances in order to raise the 2 star rating to 4 stars…
Bathroom:
- A shower that will always flood the bathroom and the hallway because it is just not sealed properly.
- The window cannot be opened. As the bathroom has also no other (e.g. electric) ventilation you can guess how to get rid of the nice smell after a session on the toilet or how to get rid of the moist air after taking a shower: Via the living room or through the bedrooms.
- Showering experience: You will find yourself being the human control unit constantly regulating or readjusting the temperature if you don't want to freeze or burn. It never stays stable longer than 5 seconds.
- Shower gel etc. needs to be put on the floor of the shower because there is not even a shower gel basket or something similar on a comfortable elevated level within the shower cabin.
- Due to the high moisture without ventilation the towels don't get dry in the bathroom.
- mirror: I am 196cm tall and the mirror top end is at around 170cm (maybe only tall people will understand my irritation: it get's very annoying after a couple of days.).
Mosquitos:
- The aspect that there is no ventilation or window to open in the bathroom was especially unpleasant because there was a real mosquito Plague(!) during our stay in September (only for 6 hours between 5:00 a.m. and 11 a.m. the mosquitos seemed to take a sleeping break). We bought and applied 3 mosquito nets to the windows (sleeping rooms and kitchen). We would have freaked out otherwise.
Garden:
- The garden was very beautiful and silent. You can hear the tennis players from the court 50m away for the whole day until 22:00 p.m. – but we did not find this disturbing. The garden was a major reason to pick exactly this apartment. Unfortunately, we were almost not able to use it due to the mosquitos.
Lighting:
- There is a huge lack of minor light sources, which might create a little bit of comfortable ambience… instead there are only major and bright light sources, e.g. in the kitchen. It is not very pleasant to have to switch on a floodlight in the kitchen in the morning when making coffee or in the evening when having dinner. Some less intrusive light sources would really help.
Living Room and entry hallway:
- No hooks on the walls. No possibilities to hang clothing, backpacks, bags, etc. conveniently, elevated and quickly when entering the apartment. You will soon find yourself in a mess because you will put everything on the floor and on the couch. A second later you are annoyed because you cannot sit on the couch.
Kitchen:
- Dishwasher has a very disappointing result, even in the 70°C intensive program... in my opinion the device is from the stone age and just trash. And it is horribly loud. Really: it hurts your ears.
- The bad dishwasher is especially annoying because the sink does not own a fitting plug. If you want to wash by hand, you will have to use some 10 ct universal plug from the hardware store, which absolutely does not fit the sink outlet and of course does not seal it. As already mentioned the water temperature is not very stable, why dishwashing gets as annoying as taking a shower.
- Don't try to use (or touch) the exhaust hood. It is covered with plenty years of fat and it is broken,... as well as the light source in the exhaust hood. At least the four flamed gas stove is nice and works properly!
- No real oven, just a microwave-grill combination. Not important for everyone but we actually missed an oven because we wanted to cook often.
- Cutlery, flatware & utensils: You will probably find everything you need but don't expect there to be some good quality/sharp knife or similar. Anyway, there is a nice and large fridge and an additional freezer compartment. The fridge is very noisy/loud, but not as loud as the dishwasher. You will find a water boiler, some espresso coffee machine, a toaster, etc. We missed a set of simple cereal bowls.
Bedroom:
- The door to the bedroom with the double bed is broken. You cannot close it because the triangular metal snapper with the spring (which every door has: it snaps into the counter piece of the fixed part of the door) is just missing(!). So it is a door, which can only be leaned close instead of snapped close. As there was also no key you cannot lock the door as an alternative. Someone replaced the snapper by putting a metal part into the hole (where the door snapper should be). This enabled the door to snap in/out with a loud noise for every snap. I don’t know if you can imagine having a four month old baby, which finally slept soundly after endless agony and is then woken up and starts crying because the door doesn’t even fulfil the basic function of a door. I could have joined screaming in with anger.
- The double bed was only 160 cm wide and the mattress was from one single piece. When my partner moved, I moved with her.
- The bed did not provide an evenly distributed counter force to stabilize my back. I assume that some of the springs in the mattress were broken or old.