Pros:
- The location is amazing - very close to everything and within walking distance of sights, restaurants, bars, main attractions etc. (This does mean the noise outside is very loud and you can hear conversations word for word, particularly at night when everyone is coming back from their nights out.)
- The apartment is cute, it's more of a bedsit/studio than an apartment but has an intimate and cosy feel.
Cons:
- The apartment was not clean when we arrived and had previous guests' mess there. The fridge and bathroom had leftovers/dirty sponges/bathroom bin full of previous guests' waste.
- The "king sized bed" is actually a sofa bed and EXTREMELY uncomfortable and creaky/loud - we literally could not even roll over in bed without the entire bed creaking, and us thinking it was about to collapse; we got no sleep during our trip (and my partner usually sleeps like a log, so that's saying something).
- The host shared my contact information with three of her "points of contact" without my permission, and they kept contacting me throughout our stay.
- Make sure you clarify the address and how to get there - we were told three different addresses and methods of transport, all completely different from each other. When we did finally arrive, there was nobody there to let us in. A young girl eventually turned up who spoke no English whatsoever and had to use her phone to translate for us. Not at all a smooth check-in.
- The tourist tax - make sure you have exact change; the girl that let us in had to come back again to take more money from us as we didn't have change.
- There is only one key to the apartment, so make sure you have contingencies for if you need to separate for whatever reason.
Verdict:
- This could probably be a really lovely stay if a few things had been different, but unfortunately, the "bed" and resulting lack of sleep, the noise, the dirt in the flat and the pestering from the host's contacts, really made our first trip to Italy a very sour one instead, to the point that we looked at either coming home a day early or finding another airbnb to stay at.
We picked this airbnb instead of a hotel because we wanted a bit more space, a bit more of a homely and romantic feel, and to have a little more peace and quiet. Unfortunately, this was not the case at all. Venice is a beautiful city, but it made us realise how a trip can be ruined if you don't have clean and comfortable accommodation.