Rome Apt - Clelie's House
 

http://lacasadiclelia.webs.com

annihg - I know you've stayed in the past. Or if there are any others out there who have stayed in the past...

If yo don't mind my asking , do you think the apt is appropriate for a family with a 2 year old? I know there are stairs in the apt. If we could block off the stairs from the top, would it be Ok, safety wise? I take it this is not a loft style apt.? Our little one loves to climb, so I am hesitant, since I don't want to always have to be on call while in the apt., if that makes sense at all.

Also, how is the bedroom/bathroom layout? Many of the apt.'s have a en-suite bathroom, which would not work for us. We need to be able to put the little one down first in a bedroom and then not have to go back into the room. So, we don't want to have to go through the room to use the bathroom, etc. From what Catherine said, the bedrooms are connected, but if we put the baby in the inside room, then we should be OK. I am having a hard time figuring out the configuration from the photos.

Any other comments?

Thanks so much!

Hi eluckhardt,

mm - hard one. I'll do my best! you enter the apartment from the street straight into the kitchen living room. from the other side of the room, stairs lead downstairs into the basement, where there is a double bedroom with a VERY small ensuite [really only a loo and basin, though there is a shower in there too that someone put optimistically behind the loo on the off-chance that a midget should occupy the flat!]

off the main bedroom is a 2nd bedroom with a single bed [and another bed underneath it that can be pulled out] and the other side of that is the main bathroom with a decent shower. [and washing machine].

so if you little one was asleep in the 2nd bedroom, you could use the loo [and the shower at a pinch] in the en suite off the main bedroom, but you would have to go through the 2nd bedroom to get to the main bathroom.

if you put some sort of barrier at the top of the stairs so your infant could not get down you would have no difficulty keeping an eye on him/her as the living-room kitchen is entirely open plan, and there is only the one room upstairs. your bigger problem might be the downstairs if you felt you might want to use the shower when the baby was asleep.


hope that helps! do feel free to come back to me if you want to ask anything else.

Thank you, annhig! Very helpful. It seems the stairs will not be an issue. I just need to decide if the room/bathroom combo will be acceptable for us. I really appreciate your help.

no problem, eluckhardt. glad to help.

I had another look at the website and really the photos do give a pretty good idea of the flat. if you have a look at the photos of the blue bedroom, there is one where you can see the "private toilet" to the right of the bedstead. there is actually a shower in there too but it is hardly useable, which is I suppose why the website doesn't mention it.

the advantages of it are that it is very well equipped and in a great position, with lots of really interesting shops and restaurants around. the layout is the main potential problem; another is the cobbled streets which surround it which might make pushing a buggy a bit of a pain, but then that applies to most of Rome.

I do wonder how you are going to succeed in blocking the stairs so your litle one cannot get past it. Kids are pretty clever at that, IMO.

I would look some more for a more suitable apartment before settling on this one.

Are there any windows in this apartment? If now, how is the lighting? It looks fairly bright in the pictures, but you never know about that. Was there WiFi? Thanks.

hi again kwren,

there is thick glass in the front door [which opens out onto the street]. they use mirrors to "borrow" this light for the bedroom downstairs. [it's very clever - we never felt that the apartment was dark]. i honestly can't remember whether there was a window as well; it didn't occur to me to look as we weren't worried about the light levels.

the downstairs, being a basement, has now windows, but does have this borrowed light and the lack of windows never bothered us.

I tend to agree with Charnees that the stairs might prove a problem, because you would have to block them both top and bottom.