Corte Tiso

The location is excellent, and inside the apartment is bright and comfortable, with a good bed and plenty of storage. But for our month-long stay, the day-to-day issues became too much. We’d be more comfortable here for a short visit, and some problems may be milder in midsummer. The courtyard is a walled square with tall walls all around, so it gets very little sunlight. Pigeons gather on the ledges and windows, and their droppings built up as autumn came. We didn’t have a hosepipe to clean it, so we hardly used the space. Once, some sort of oil spilled from a window above and landed on me. The outdoor washing area was also dirty when we arrived. Near the bathroom, an outside utility space houses the boiler and collects more pigeon dirt. With the bathroom window open for ventilation, we often had to use a lot of fly spray. We kept it shut because of insects, and the bathroom showed signs of damp, probably worsened by the wet autumn weather. Later in the season, little bugs started gathering by the outside entrance beside the bathroom door. We handled the cleaning ourselves during the month, though the linen and towels were changed. A vacuum cleaner and hosepipe would have helped a lot. The owner did arrange for the cleaner to tidy the outdoor mess when we asked, and he even brought us excellent biscuits to apologize. Still, keeping things clean over a longer stay was difficult. There’s no dishwasher or washing machine either. Noise was another recurring problem. Groups of young people, mostly goths, gathered outside on many evenings to drink and play music. The owner called the police for us one night, but the gatherings tended to start up again from Wednesday onwards, weather permitting. They usually quietened between 11:30 pm and 1 am, so it could be disruptive if you go to bed early. There’s no terrestrial TV, only internet, and the electrical supply seems limited to about 3 kW. Running too many appliances at once can trip the power.