Atzompa, Casa Crónica

This is a charming unit, part of a four-unit building just a short walk from the restaurants, shops, and history you'll want to see while you're there. We loved the decor - lots of Oaxacan touches. We also loved seeing the history of the building's previous owner (grandfather to current owner, I think) displayed in framed proclamations in the shared entrance area. The unit was spotless.The neighborhood was quiet (other than distant music) and safe. We would happily return if we have the opportunity to come back to Oaxaca. We rate it a "4" rather than a 5 for three small, fixable reasons. First, the lock for the unit door was extremely challenging. Eventually we lubricated the key with cooking oil, which helped a lot. Second, the kitchen faucet didn't work. We used the bathroom faucet instead and hopefully this will be repaired soon. Finally, the front bedroom has a window that faces into the internal courtyard. Other guests can (and did) turn that light on in the middle of the night, which lit up the bedroom, waking us up. This could be fixed by installing black-out shades in the front bedroom. We still very much enjoyed our stay and felt that the room was a good value.

Clean but dated apartment. A few stains on the area rugs. Not centrally located but not too far out. When we arrived, check-in was problematic because the previous guest did not put the keys back, the host did not confirm that the keys were available, and it was raining. Had to communicate with VRBO customer service and then the host and had to enter through another apartment to gain access to the apartment. Entering the apartment, the bathroom smelled. We contacted the host and he came the next day and put a cover on the shower drain and added a fragrance plug to the bathroom. On the day before we left, there was no hot water to the entire apartment. We contacted the host who came and checked but could not fix it. The host called a plumber to come the next day but the plumber could not fix it either. A cold shower before a long flight home was not fun.