Booking through the major private bed and breakfast sites, one has to understand how to read their advertisements to ascertain what is and isn’t included.
For example, “en suite” signifies there is a bathroom in your room. If it doesn’t say en suite, you are probably walking down the hall to a bathroom, and in some cases, sharing one with another room.
In our case, we were looking at accommodations that had top floor loft units and a balcony. Depending on the number of floors, we also look for a lift (elevator) if the loft is available.
We chose a loft apartment in Florence. Between the look of the flat and the location in the city center, trudging up 4 floors without a lift seemed reasonable, especially considering we weren’t going to be making the effort that often.
When we arrived we discovered that although the flat was on the fourth floor, there were several flights of stairs, and based on the actual number of stairs, it was more like 7 floors. This does NOT include the set of stairs required to reach the loft…
Check it out for yourself, paying specific attention to 0:37 where I bump into the wall half way through.
Now remember, we rented a 4th floor flat.
Moral of the story is, when you realize you have to climb that many steps, you’re very careful to make sure you have everything with you to avoid having to go back up and get something you forgot.
In 3 days? That happened only once. However, almost every day we climbed those stairs at least twice. And when we left, we did it 4 times.
Sometimes things aren’t exactly as you expected. It is then that you need to decide whether it’s a deal breaker, or it’s just part of the fun of your journey.
Was it still worth it for us? You betcha. It was much less than a hotel room in center city, more spacious and homey, plus, it makes a great story!