I will recommend using sleepinitaly (www.sleepinitaly.com) but others on this site have had good experiences with other companies, too. When you email a rental agency tell them the locations you are interested in and your budget and any other criteria that you have and they will give you a list of apartments that meet your criteria.

Here are the central neighborhoods that I would suggest your family would like:

Campo di Fiori and Trastevere would be very appealing to your sons (especially Trastevere) and both are near to historic sites. Trastevere is across the Tiber but convenient and a great area for restauarants and nightlife.

Piazza Navona, Pantheon, and Ghetto areas are also central and great neighborhoods. All are close to one another and would be good choices.

When you search for apartments focus on those areas.

Also, check out www.slowtravel for reviews of apartments and rental agencies. It is an excellent website for that.

Now some practical advice.
Hot water is at a premium in Italy so when you rent make sure the apartments have good water heaters or 4 people will not get warm showers in the morning. This happened to me a few years ago with an apartment. Even with a good water heaters you still have to shower quickly and may need to stagger your showers. Make sure the extra beds are comfortable and have enough bedding in the apartments to service all four.

I am heading for Rome next month and renting an apartment in the Campo Fiori area - going with my 18 year old daughter. Last time we rented in Trastevere - and we brought along her boyfriend. They loved Trastevere and this summer my daughter stayed in the Campo di Fiori area and had a lot of fun, too. While those areas are particulary great for young people all of Rome is interesting and your sons will most likley be captivated by the pulse of Rome wherever they venture.

Renting is a great option and gives you the ability to really get imbedded in the neigbhorhood and even more importantly gives you enough space to relax and enjoy your vacation.

Good luck.

We prefer Largo Argentina area which is Pantheon, Campo de' Fiori and Piazza Navona. This may also include Piazza Farnese or Via Giulia, which are two special areas just off Campo de' Fiori.

We do not like staying in Trastevere b/c it just isn't that central.

We like the trattoria all around Piazza Navona, Via della Pace, espresso around Pantheo, walk to Spanish Steps is fun as is walk over to Vatican.

I second the recommendation for the Largo delle Torre Argentina area because it is so central, but it would also help to know what interests your two adult sons. If they want to go nightclubbing, Trastavere is a good choice because if its proximity to Testaccio. However, if they are more interested in other aspects of Roma, like art, or like to exercise every day (jog, whatever) you might want to be closer to the Spanish Steps and the Borghese area. If they are fascinated by antiquity, stay closer to the monuments.

The one area I would not recommend around Eastertime is the Vatican area. It just gets crowded.

We have recently had a wonderful experience with www.sleepinitaly.com with an apartment on Via Giulia (Giulia Gold), a great location for walking to the sites and for squares and Campo di Fiori market. The company has many apartments in this area and you will find many greta reveiws on this site from other users.

Hi Everyone!
I have looked at sleepinitaly and it is a great source. How do I use the slowtravel to look up an apartment that I find on sleepinitaly?

risab,
I could not get on slowtravel.com. Could you check and see if the thats the right spelling for me?

Julie, try this link:

http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/vr/list.asp?r=Rome

Another good agency for apartments in Rome is realrome.com. The owner, Tim Pearson, is very pleasant and helpful

and a good thread discussing different neighborhoods and different apartments
www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=2&tid=34792021

vttraveler-Thanks for the franco link. This person has a lot of knowledge and its a great read. I and going to look in Campo di Fiori and Trastevere for apartments. I have looked in sleepinitaly and real rome for apartments. My problem now is finding one for 5 people. We are bringing a friends daughter. Have anyone used any of the other apartment rentals out there?

I know I mentioned this before but make sure that the apartment has sufficient hot water and if this is your first time in Italy remind everyone that showers need to be fast and you may need to stagger showers.

Another neighborhood that is very cool and has some larger apartments is "Monti" - via Serpenti and via del Boschetto. I stayed in the area a few years ago on Via del Boschetto and loved it. There are a lot of good restaurants and artist shops. It reminded me a bit of the east village in nyc. It isn't as close to the historic area but it is an interesting area and walkable to most areas. It is near to the Coleseum.

Just to clarify - Monti is close to many historic sites but a walk to Piazza Navonna and Pantheon.

From my trip report (Nov 2007 trip):

Our apartment was the Green Apartment at Residenza Giubbonari (http://www.residenzagiubbonari.com/home.html). (€208/nt + metered electricity which turned out to be €20 for the week) It was very nice and having two bedrooms and two baths along with a washer and a dryer was great. The only problem we had was an issue with hot water, but we solved that by the end of the week. The location was ideal, being only a few minutes down the street from Campo di Fiori. There was a great bar/pastry shop just down the street and a grocery store right around the corner. From there, we could walk almost everywhere (and did aside from when it was raining). Even if we hadn't, it was less than 5 minutes from the Torre Argentina transportation hub.

(While we didn't use it, there is a sleeper sofa in the living room which could accommodate a fifth person.)

Paul

SANSCHAG-I check out the apartments and liked them very much. Through the reviews I decided to go with the red apartment. I was a little concerned about the noise that people mentioned on some of their reviews but my husband and boys can sleep through anything and I figure I will invest in some ear plugs just incase. I didn't know that you had to pay 50% now and cash at the end. Do you bring all that cash with you or do you get it at a bank in Rome. I found this apartment building through In Italy website also. They were more money then this website you gave me. Did you use a taxi service to get to your apartment?

We went to Rome last Sept and rented from www.romepower.com and were very pleased. We also used them to book transfers to and from the airport and were happy with the service. I would use them again!

We stayed on Via Guila near Campo di Fiori and found the location perfect!

julie, get your money for the apartment from an ATM when you get to Rome. If your daily limit isn't high enough, ask your bank to raise it before you go. Or open a second account at another bank so you can get enough. That's what I do. And it doesn't hurt to have a card from two different banks in case you lose one.

To italy4julie:

Glad you found the info useful. We really did like the apartment. It was a bit more than we had originally budgeted, but we decided to go for it and were glad we did. The only time time I recall hearing any noise was when the the group of Hari Krishnas went down the street below banging their drums, etc.

As to the money, we didn't use an ATM for most of the rent as we withdrew most of it from our German account (we spent 2 years there) earlier in the week (and then carried in a money belt) while we were visiting. I agree with the others, simply use an ATM. I suspect that if you can't get quite all of it at first, they'd be happy to take the remainder the next day. They have an office on the first floor (another plus). We took a taxi from the train station as we arrived from Venice. We probably paid more than we should have, but there were 5 of us and he drove right to apartment (i.e., into the pedestrian zone). We took a shuttle to the airport. We didn't use romeshuttle (? the one that is recommended here) as we wanted a car seat from my son (22 months old at the time) and they couldn't provide one. I would think for 5, a private shuttle would be best as most taxis can't hold 5 adults.

Feel free to let me know if you want any more info on the specific area. I have more stuff on my trip report (http://www.sanschagrin.com/travel/Italy2007_report.html). Feel free to email me as well (<first name>@<last name>.com).

Paul Sanschagrin

sanshag- I found the Residenza Giabbonari rental in two different places. One was from the site you sent me the other was from in italy. Which company did you use?

I used www.rentalinrome.com and stayed in the piazza navona area. I absolutely loved it. It was right in the middle of shopping, sites and lots of great food..even though you would be really hard pressed to find somewhere in Rome where you didn't have great food!

We stayed in an apartment, rented through real rome, in Oct last year in Campo de Fiori. We loved the area and the apartment but this area is very noisy until the early hours of the morning - bars and restaurants etc. We were fortunate in that we were on top floor (6th I think) and the bedroom window faced into an inner courtyard/lift well.

Trastavere is only a short walk away and I would consider staying there in future on what would be our 3rd trip. We were disappointed with the restaurants and bars in Trastavere and found them very expensive compared to other areas but maybe we just made bad choices.

I used the site I gave, which is I believe is the site of the residence itself. I know we had direct contact with the apartments' owner/agent (who was very helpful).

Paul