L'arco di porta Lecce

We had a good time here. It’s a nice place to sleep, cook, and relax. The bed is a bit hard, but I slept well on it.

We paid the tourist tax on top of a stay that, for the price, had far too many problems. Breakfast was included, but when I asked whether the bar had vegan, gluten-free, or plant-based milk options, they told me I could ask there. The bar had none of them. It felt like a complete joke. My only regret is not getting my money back so I could have moved somewhere pleasant. I’m including a few photos. I gave one star only because zero wasn’t an option. We weren’t given a choice of rooms when booking, and I expected a single room on two floors. Instead, we got the so-called “love” room: there was a coffee machine by the entrance and a very dangerous staircase. Upstairs, the bathroom was straight ahead and the bed beyond it. There was no wardrobe, table, or decoration. The bed creaked with every movement, so sleep was unsettled. The bathroom floor was wet from a damp rag, and shower water leaked onto the floor, making it easy to slip or even fall down the stairs just outside. Both railings were wobbly and unsafe. The toilet seat was broken as well. The coffee machine had no little cabinet or place for a water jug, so when it ran out you had to go upstairs to refill it and come back down. The neighbors were loud enough that we could hear their conversations, and some mornings there was constant banging on the wall.

At night, the stairwell light was a nuisance: once upstairs in the loft, there was no way to switch it off without going back down. Morning light also came straight through the uncovered entry window. The pillows were too thin, and we won’t be returning. The place didn’t match the website photos. The entrance splits into two doors for the Family and Love rooms, and we had booked Love. Its roughly 1.5 m2 entry had only a mini-bar on the floor and a street-facing window with no curtain or blind. A steep wooden staircase, about 2.5 m high, led to the bedroom, which was hard to reach while carrying a bag of around 20 kg. The upstairs area was supposedly 20 m2, but felt small, with a mezzanine ceiling about 1.85 m high. The railing beside the stairs wasn’t firmly fixed and felt unstable. The bed, an Ikea model, was squeezed between the wall and the back of the railing. It creaked whenever we turned over, and there were no bedside tables or switches to turn off the bedroom light from the bed. There was little useful furniture, no mirror or small table with a couple of chairs for reading, and the advertised coffee machine was missing. The included breakfast was meant to be at a nearby café with a voucher, but the café is closed tomorrow, so we can’t use it. They deducted €5 from the tourist tax as compensation. The toilet was dirty when we arrived; I photographed it and reported it to the property. The Wi-Fi also wasn’t the network listed in the brochure, though the property gave me new login details after I contacted them.

We spent two nights in an apartment that was nice overall, but the owner’s presence felt a bit sketchy. The staircase to the upper floor was unsafe, and there’s a height difference between the bottom of the stairs and the upstairs floor, so you have to watch your step carefully. Breakfast was included, but the coffee maker was broken. They’d left a moka pot instead, but no coffee grounds for it. The mini donut was dry from being left out of its bag. Cushions for the sofa bed were stored underneath the couch at floor level, where they could collect dust; I’d rather they’d been kept in a closet. There were mirrors only in the bathroom, none in the bedrooms.