Michele’s apartment is beautiful, and my husband and I had a lovely time celebrating a special occasion in Venice.
That said, there were a couple of issues. When we arrived we were greeted by the night porter of the co-located Palazzo Odoni Hotel, who was to let us in as Michele was out of the country. He opened the door and instantly saw that the room had not been cleaned by the maid service. He called Michele who arranged for us to stay the first night of our five night break in the hotel, with breakfast included. Whilst the room and breakfast were nice, and we had a fridge to store the groceries we’d bought, we had specifically booked the apartment as we like a self-catering space and a bathtub and we had neither. This also meant we had to change room, which was a little inconvenient as we’d made lots of plans and had appointments that day to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We note though that at least there was somewhere alternative for us to stay, in many AirBnBs that wouldn’t be possible.
Once we got in to the apartment we still felt we’d made the right choice as it’s lovely. We did, however, as I mentioned, book it specifically because of the spa bath. We found on running this that it was not functional - it had a leak which came out on to the floor, there were issues with hot water supply, and the jets did not function. We told Michele immediately, and when we met him the next morning (once he was back from travelling), he said he would call a technician. We heard nothing more from him the rest of our stay. We chose not to keep contacting him and focus on our holiday. If you don’t want baths, the apartment is great, but unless the bath is repaired it does not have that feature.
Like many apartment buildings sound can carry between apartments, so we had some broken sleep on three of the four nights. Pack earplugs if you’re a light sleeper.
Kitchen was well provisioned for cooking etc, and fridge was a lovely good size. Plenty of towels, pillows, a spare blanket etc, though we did have to buy shower gel as there was only 3 sachets.
Location is fantastic, really handy for Piazzale Roma (airport bus and Vaporetto services, and a Coop) and the train station. The 35 airport express bus takes only 15-20 minutes (be warned the 5 is 25-35 mins) and the stop is only a 5 minute walk away. We enjoyed glass making and kayaking trips, visited Murano and Burano, took a train to Padua, walked to catch the sunrise over the Rialto, took the Vaporetto down the Grand Canal and explored all of Venice on foot happily from base. Restaurants nearby can be hit or miss for atmosphere but we loved Osteria Al Leone.
We would stay with Michele again, with some reassurance that we’d arrive to an apartment that’s ready for us and a working bath.