BB Crigi

The booking process via Trip Advisor and subsequently Booking.com was seamless; we were kept up-to-date via the booking.com app and were able to communicate freely with the owner/manager. The owner is a really lovely lady called Giuseppina - she lives literally 20 feet from the apartment door and, although she doesn’t speak English, her friend, Nicoletta, is always on hand to give sound advice and answer any queries. We communicated with Nicoletta via WhatsApp so, even though our flight was delayed by a couple of hours, she was there waiting for us when we arrived at around 01:30! She gave us a brief tour of the apartment and some information on the locality, best places to eat, best places to view the sunset, must-see attractions, etc. I can’t praise Nicoletta highly enough - I kept communication to a minimum as it transpired that she isn’t employed to manage the apartment, she is simply a friend of the owner and was therefore helping out purely from the good of her heart. She was absolutely brilliant! I found some past reviews to be somewhat confusing in respect of what the apartment has to offer and what the parking situation is, etc. Hopefully what I’m about to tell you will provide some clarity. The apartment itself is situated right on the edge of Piazza . It’s around two minutes walk to the coastline and the same again to the world famous restaurant, Grotte Palazessi; another minute or two will bring you to the edge of stunning Polignano old town. The property is basically a maisonette. It is a first floor apartment with a fantastic fruit and veg shop below and a speciality cheese and wine shop right next to that! It is a typically traditional Italian property with an internal stone staircase leading to the Entrance door. This leads directly into the living/dining area, a spacious room with beautiful original tiled floor, a dining table & chairs, various traditional furniture and a large sofa. The Wi-Fi hub is also in this room; however, the signal is strong enough where ever you are in the apartment. Immediately off of the living/dining room is the kitchen, which is fully fitted with cooker, fridge freezer, microwave, washing machine and all the usual crockery and cutlery. Beyond this is another flight of stone steps, which leads to twin bedroom, which is a lovely cosy space for kids/teenagers. Back downstairs, from the living/Dining room there double doors into the main double bedroom, which, again is well equipped with a beautiful king-size bed, luxurious bedding, large traditional wardrobe and large chest of drawers. This is an on suite room with shower sink WC and bidet. There was always hot water on demand and the water pressure in the shower was very good indeed. The bedroom also has double doors Which lead to a tiny terrace with colourful potted plants. There is also a second shower room with sink, WC and bidet - This is a shower space versus a cubicle and has more room than the ensuite shower. We used both showers of this saved time when getting ready to go out… The apartment is excellent, it is cleaned daily by the owner and is always left spotless with clean towels, etc. By far the best feature is the balcony, which comfortably fits 2 chairs and overlooks the piazza (and has a distant sea-view to the left) allowing you to sit and sip your coffee (or wine) and soak up the wonderful traditional Italian atmosphere! Depending on what time of day you are looking out, you can be treated to either the peace & serenity of early morning sunrise (the serenity is repeated between around 13:00-1700), right through to the bustle of teatime with people chatting in the piazza, the church bells chiming and cars and scooters dotting around the narrow one-way system... The balcony and all windows have steel shutters on the outside and internal upvc doors. As stated earlier, I was confused by some previous reviews and wondered whether the kitchen, etc. would be shared with other residents; however, the fact is, there are no other residents - the whole thing is yours for the duration of your stay. As for parking, no problem – we just parked right outside! There are different coloured bays to denote who is allowed to park where; white-lined bays are for anyone to park, for free. Blue-lined bays denote paid parking (ticket from the roadside machine), and yellow lined bays are for residents only; however, despite the signage, this is not enforced by law (yet), so we always parked immediately outside the apartment in the yellow lines bays and we had no trouble whatsoever. Bottom Line: The apartment was a home from home and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough; in fact, I would go as far as to say that it was so good, I considered not leaving a review as the less people know about it, the more chance I have of it being available next year! That said, it was indeed so good that it’s only fair I give it an extremely positive review! *I don’t have any photos of inside the apartment; however, I did make a video for family back home - if you’d like me to send it to you via Whatsapp or FB, just message me via here and I’d be happy to. :)