The name of the apartment, Convivio, in Italian means to ‘shack up’ or live together. Not sure how she came up with that name. Maybe it is meant to be more like living together in harmony. The owner, Janine, bought the place about 30 years ago. She lives in Australia but does some sort of business that involves Italy.

The place is fairly large and is in a 12th century tower. The kitchen and bathroom used to be a hallway between buildings so people didn’t have to walk on the dirty, dangerous streets with the riffraff.

Living and Dining Room

High ceiling with heater near top

As I mentioned before, I had an issue with the heater not being on. Even when it is, it is so high up on the wall by the ceiling that it isn’t very efficient. The one window in here looks out onto the back side of everyone’s apartments and the sun never makes it in.

Room Without a View!

The kitchen is tiny but I make do on the boat with a much, much smaller one! Biggest problem here is the poor lighting. But that is pretty much true of the whole place.

Kitchen

There is a ‘study’ that has a desk, armoire full of bedding, and a couch that makes into a bed. There is another one like it in the living room, so the place could actually sleep six.

Study from Window Seat

To the left off the study is the minuscule bathroom. You can’t see it but across from the toilet and bidet is a closet that has the washer below and storage above.

Bathroom

The bedroom is very large and the bed is fairly comfortable, the pillows are not. I am fussy about pillows and they have all been too much like a piece of foam, not down that is able to be squished into however you like it.

Bedroom

The bedroom, study, and bathroom windows are high up on the wall and all look out onto another building. The walls of the building are about 2 feet thick so to see down to the street I have to stand on the window seat and kind of lean out. Below is a fish shop and two vegetable stands which are closed today as it is Sunday.

View out windows

View down to street

The streets are narrow and the buildings are tall around here so the sun never gets in the windows or onto the streets. The noise echoes up into the bedroom at night. Every night I can hear the partiers being very loud up until 4:00AM. I finally looked out one night about 12:30AM because I heard a loud engine noise. It was a street cleaner. Then I noticed why I am hearing so many drunks. There is a bar on the corner that is only open at night. I don’t even think there is a name on it, but during the night there are chairs and barrels for tables outside of it.

Corner Bar

There is also a little cafe right next to the entrance door on the street. Yesterday morning the whole building smelled of onions, then other foods. You can really hear them in their kitchen which must be just below mine.

So that is the apartment tour. It is comfortable enough, but I would really prefer a place that had windows that you could see out of and that enabled more light in.