Garden House does have two good points; good location and quite comfortable beds. We signed up, as two couples, for 5 nights in an apartment with two double bedrooms, kitchen, garden access and (as clearly stated on the website) separate bathrooms.
The lady of the house, who is charm itself, speaks Italian only. This is fine for Italian guests but non-speakers may find as we did that the process of exchanging emails during the booking process is very tedious, as is the language barrier when dealing with
her in person.
The photos on the Garden House website have been carefully staged to give an impression of a gracious, old-fashioned family villa. It is nothing of the sort. The rooms are fusty, musty and very basic, and the property itself is a rabbit-warren of rooms and apartments. Our kitchen was pre 1950s vintage and in bad repair - you wouldn't really contemplate it for cooking, but at least it was the one communal place in the whole apartment. The one and only bathroom was small, barely clean and full of some other person's half-used soap, toiletries and other stuff. The garden looks charming on the website but it is dank and smelt strongly of cat piddle, catfood, unemptied ashtrays and stale wine.
Garden House is noisy, with an amplified telephone ringer going off at all hours and the lady of the house making and taking phone calls on top note! She has no concept of the idea that paying money for accommodation entitles the guest to peace, quiet and privacy; lights that were left on were found to have been turned off in our absence, and the clincher was the occasion when one of the moggies (who have free entry to this property via multiple cat doors) wandered into the bathroom where one of the ladies was having a private moment. A middle-aged pair of female hands appeared around the open door at floor level, extracted the cat and disappeared with it - probably through one of the many mysterious doors in the apartment - to who knows where. Nice experience!
There is more, but I can sum it up by saying that Garden House was probably the worst accommodation we experienced anywhere in Italy during our six weeks there. Don't believe what you see on the website and don't pay the exorbitant asking price (240 Euros/day for two double bedrooms and only one bathroom) for this third-rate property. There would be much better value elsewhere in Perugia.
