Anna's apartment was perfect -- just as we expected and even more! Note that it's not where it looks like on the Airbnb map, but rather in Santa Croce, near Campo San Giacomo and the San Stae vaporetto stop. And that turned out to be an amazing location. The walk from the vaporetto to the building is completely flat, so even though we still had to carry our luggage up the stairs to the apartment, we felt luckier than all those tourists climbing up and down bridges with their suitcases. And once we were settled in, we found that no matter where we wanted to explore in the city, we were walking distance or boating distance -- we never felt that we were too far away from anything.

And the apartment! The balcony, as everyone says, is spectacular. The kitchen is super tiny, but we still made coffee or tea and had breakfast (with pastries from the bakery around the corner; Anna will show you) on the balcony every day. A warning: As Venice is built on water, you can expect mosquitoes at night; we found the Raid plug-in things to be very effective (and if you don't like chemicals, we left a bottle of natural repellent behind).

Anna was an incredible host; she met us at the vaporetto and walked us home, took the time to make sure we knew where we were and where to find all necessities (and non-necessities!), and when she realized a couple of lightbulbs needed replacing, she ran out to buy them right away. We felt completely taken care of. Grazie mille, Anna!