Overall, this was a fairly disappointing experience. Although the location is great, the bed is comfortable, and the hosts are communicative, there were quite a few little things, which just added up to a substandard experience.
Here's a quick summary of all the positives and negatives:
Positives:
- Allowed us to check-in 4 hours early as there was no guest staying prior to our check-in
- Great location and access to tourist attractions
- Cosy living room
Negatives:
- There are 2 heating elements on the cooking hob but only 1 of them works (that too the small one).
- Lacking basic amenities for a 4 night stay (e.g. no washing powder, no cooking oil, minimal body wash liquid for 4 nights, no dishwashing liquid, used and dirty sponge to clean dishes, no water kettle, 1.5 toilet rolls and no kitchen towels).
- No control over heating. It automatically turns down to the lowest setting during the day even though it was really cold.
- Extremely poor WiFi connection, which kept fluctuating between on/off and speeds ranging between 1 Mbps to 15 Mbps. This was the case even without the rain.
- There is no dining table. Instead, there's a small folding table with minimal space for chairs as there is a large armchair in the way.
- We requested for some more toilet roll but were left a bit surprised at the host's response to our request - suggesting 1.5 is enough for 2 people for 4 nights. We wanted to keep the flat clean and had to use the toilet rolls to clean up the kitchen after each use, as there were no kitchen towels to be found.
The following should have been explained/clarified in the Airbnb listing:
- It gets extremely noisy early in the morning and until late in the evening with the several loud church bells.
- There is no lift in the building.
- The front door of the building is extremely hard to open, people kept banging it to open it or shut it, which was extremely noisy during early mornings and nights.