Casa Vacanze Stella

The only thing I liked was the view from the kitchen. For €950 for a weekend in October, this Airbnb was a huge disappointment. There wasn’t enough equipment or light, the house was very humid, and the bedding was awful, with a bad smell from the sheets. Getting there meant taking a really difficult road, and the neighborhood looked neglected. We won’t return or recommend it.

The house sits outside the center of Giarre, so having a car is necessary. Google Maps suggested shortcuts that weren’t practical, though the nearby highway didn’t bother us at all. We spent nine days there at the end of September, five adults in my family. The house is split into two apartments, with the pool and porch upstairs. It had every comfort, and the host did their best to meet all our requests. The kitchen view was breathtaking. I recommend it.

The A18 overpass is only a few hundred meters away, so despite the rural setting, it isn't quiet. The house is reasonably well-finished, but it lacks radiators and has pipes that are dangerously long. There are two double bedrooms and one single, while the fourth bedroom downstairs is really part of the kitchen, with no door between them. The pool is small and shallow, and the shed beside it is poorly lit at night. The wooden mezzanine makes some noise. Reaching the property is difficult: GPS directs you down a road that is now impassable, and the only way to the house is narrow and partly unpaved.

We stayed at La Vecchia Torre last June, two couples on holiday, and wouldn't go back. The villa was badly maintained and in a terrible state, and it certainly didn't justify the price. Inside, the amenities were scattered, dated, and completely unclean. There were three coffee makers, but all were broken, and none of the three TVs worked either. We called the owner for four days before a replacement TV was finally installed. Even the agent couldn't find the villa because the directions were so difficult. The area around it was in awful shape, despite having rented lovely villas through the same company before.