Casa Maria

Really good value for money, with exceptional staff. A great place to stay :)

A lovely, cozy villa.

We had a fabulous stay. We rented Casa Sole, which has a terrace where we could eat, and the owner was very kind. The house is fully equipped: air conditioning, TV, two bathrooms, a double bed, and a small kitchenette with an oven, refrigerator, sink, and stove. It’s close to both the highway and the sea.

For a short stay, it does the job: clean, quiet at night, and decorated quite nicely with accessories. But my long stay in 2018/19 left a very mixed impression, quite different from the glowing reviews, especially when judged by professional standards. During the day, the front door slams because the entrance is also used as a cleaning and work area. The house is rented to day guests too, so it can be noisy. If you book Stella or the neighboring studio, expect dogs belonging to neighbors competing with each other, along with other street noise. The studios’ kitchen and living area is cramped. TV is only in Italian. The house has free Wi-Fi, so for a longer stay you might want to buy a streaming app for your tablet back home. Sole and Clelia don’t get adequately heated in winter. The busy landlord, Gruessner Sr., seems to notice only after a freezing tenant complains. He and a female employee said Italian heating rules are set by law and that they follow them. In the end, he calculated heating costs very carefully. The promised Palermo market tour was a joke, just go and Google it yourself. There were no meals at the Gruessner family home and no cooking classes. An Italian course is offered, but you have to pay a registration fee of 50 euros, an apparently small sum that Mr. Gruessner Sr. counts on for extra income, with no benefit in return. Don’t expect professional training rooms or digital resources for the course. It’s all paper, old-fashioned and cheap.