After hearing that the Airbnb we stayed in is on a local home tour, I googled our house and was surprised to find that it was once written up in the NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/realestate/real-estate-in-nicaragua.html
"Casa Blanca" was built in the 1750s, so it's older than the USA! The house was a splurge, but had everything we were looking for in a rental for the month, and I'm glad we were able to stay here. The location is great: It's smack in the center of the city, a block from the main square behind the beautiful yellow cathedral that is the first picture in any story about Granada. It's at the top of a pedestrianized street, Calle La Calzada, surrounded by tons of restaurants. The only problem with the location, actually, is that we were a little too close to those restaurants at times - the bars don't close until after 3 on the weekends and they can be loud. Fortunately, the girls are solid sleepers and the noise didn't really bother them.
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| Pool & hammocks - best part of the house! |
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| Corridor by the girls' rooms |
As for the house itself, it's 6 bed, 6 bath, so each of the girls had a large room with a queen bed and private bath. The principal bedroom was extremely comfortable, and the stone bath was beautiful.
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| Bigger than our room at home |
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| The stone! |
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| Ruth's room |
We commandeered a bedroom with two twin daybeds for our TV room, since that was the only TV close enough to the router to get a Wifi signal for streaming through our FireStick. We also had cable on the 3 TVs, so watched the occasional show in Spanish (Gordon Ramsey and some Spiderman movies).
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| The non-TV side of the TV room |
There were three areas we didn't really use - a separate TV nook upstairs that is the hottest place in the house due to the large plastic-covered windows, the 3rd queen bedroom, and the servant's quarters (twin bed/private bath) off the kitchen. We mostly ignored the formal living room/entry area too, preferring the lounge area near the pool instead. It's pretty though!
We stuck to the same schedule as last year, eating out usually one meal each day plus the occasional snack or drinks. The kitchen was well-stocked for an Airbnb in terms of appliances and heavy cookware (side note: I now understand that I need a rice cooker), so it was easy to cook our other meals. We meal-prepped on Sundays with large batches of rice and beans for the week's gallo pinto. Weeks 2-4 were much improved over our first try after asking for tips from my Spanish teacher and some tour guides.
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| Kitchen |
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| This dining table! |
Except for the bedrooms and bathrooms, all our living spaces are open to the courtyard, so it was hot all day. Thank goodness for the pool - if we couldn't swim frequently to cool off, I think we'd all have had a much different take on this trip.
This house, like the one we stayed in last year, offers major discounts for long-term stays of 28 days or more. When I checked the price for a few days after we left, the nightly rate was more than 4 times (!) the nightly rate we're paying for our stay. Love a long-term discount. This was also one of the only Airbnbs I've ever booked that allowed for a full refund if you cancel more than 30 days before your trip. Even better: it came with housekeeping Mon-Sat.
