h2babe - Ha! At 28, YES you are YOUNG! The parts of Trastevere that I saw would be fine to stay in. That was the area around the Piazza Santa Maria (near the Ponte Sisto, which is a pedestrain bridge). I don't know about the other areas.

Testaccio is a bit out of the way. It is a working-class neighborhood that has recently become a fairly in place with the younger set, with clubs and so on.

There was someone on this board who spent a month in Rome...I wish I could remember her screen name. She visited Testaccio. I have too, and although I'm about 8 years older than you (ouch) I would agree that it's a fun neighborhood. I think I'd still choose Trastevere though, even a tattier part of it, simply because it *is* more central.

Another option, although I'm not sure it's considerably less expensive, would be the area sort of near the Forum. I'm thinking via Panisperna and that network of little streets. Someone on this board recently likened it to the East Village (or was it the LES?) in NYC. I've wandered through there a few times and remember thinking to myself, "Oh, this is cute; I'd stay here." Still very central and easily accessible to virtually everything.

It's hard to say, though, because I imagine for a month's stay one's need/desire for centrality is far less than when one is staying for just a week or so.

Definitely contact whichever rental agencies you are condisering and see if they will reduce for longer stays. I noticed realrome does do this.

Best of luck.

For a month ANYWHERE I would pick an apartment. A hotel would get awfully tiresome.

h2,

I couldn't find her trip report, but I did find a reference that massagediva made to renting an apartment in Rome for the month of Feb. last year in Trastevere. She rented through flatinrome.com and said she was able to get a price reduction renting for the whole month. Something around 1000 Euros. I'd check them out and search waaayyy back for massagediva's report.

Thanks again everyone for your replies. Leely, thank you for referring me to messagediva's trip last year - and yes, I did find her report and read it! The link flatinrome.com didnt seem to work. However, I saw a couple of very charming apt that's within my price range around Trastevere from the other websites that was suggested previously, so I am going to put them on my list.

Willtravel, thanks for the information about Hotel Julia!

You're welcome, Brazilnut.

On SlowTalk.com right now there's a thread about the downside of renting an apartment - if you get there and find it's not so good or pleasant as you had reasonably hoped, and you really have little recourse then.

WillTravel, thank you for referring me to the SlowTalk website. The experience that was discussed was actually on apt that I thought looked relatively decent on the website, so this was a good information for me to know.