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.
Understanding the lingo
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. In some cases, sharing a bathroom 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 indeed on the fourth floor as advertised, BUT there were several flights of stairs. Based on the actual number of stairs and the height of each stair, it was more like 7 floors. This does NOT include the set of stairs required to reach the loft…
The stairs
Check it out for yourself, paying specific attention to 0:37 where it looks like I bump into the wall half way through. Just turning the light on though.
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. This helps you avoid having to go back up to retrieve 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!