Palazzo Polini-Fioretti Apartment

If a quiet, comfortable holiday is what you’re after, this place isn’t for you. The 19th-century palace is well situated in Carassai, a pretty, typical village just 20 minutes from the sea. It’s spacious and has beautiful ceiling frescoes, but the accommodation has too many drawbacks. The kitchenette is tiny and poorly equipped, tucked into a former passageway only a meter wide. There’s no microwave or small dishwasher, the two-burner electric hob seems ancient, and the kitchenware is secondhand. The bed base in the back bedroom flexes like an air mattress on the Adriatic Sea, and without double glazing, every little street noise comes into the bedroom. The listing mentions Wi-Fi, but there’s no modem in the apartment. You have to connect at the pharmacy on the ground floor. After the owner sent us three or four wrong access codes, she said she couldn’t help, so we worked it out ourselves and asked the pharmacy owner, who kindly gave us the code. Then, two days before we arrived, we were told that a “Sausage Festival” (Sagra della Salsiccia) would be held in the street from August 12th to 20th, practically our entire holiday. Ten nights of sleeplessness ahead. Our host said she’d only heard about it two days before, though this was the 49th edition. To cope with the street noise, we ended up moving the front bedroom mattress into the living room at the back and sleeping with earplugs. That sums up the stay.

A beautiful historic home, definitely worth recommending!