a week in Florence
 

my husband and I are planning a weeks stay in Florence, end of March 2011 as a reward for a hard fought second occurance of cancer. My family came from Ischia de Castro in the early 1900s and I have a cousin of sorts in Viterbo that we plan on seeing.. ..we were in Rome 4 years ago and were given great suggestions by the contributers to this forum.. We are looking for a reasonably priced hotel.. my husband is well over 6 ft tall so the bed may be a challenge.. ..

suggestions? I think we have to drive to Ischia di Castro but I have read a train is available to Viterbo..

Ischia di Castro is close to Viterbo, but neither is really possible as a day trip from Florence, so what might be a good plan is to make Rome at least one of your airports, so that you can spend time in that area at the beginning or end of your trip.

The train connection between Rome and Viterbo is fairly short. Those between Florence and Viterbo are somewhat time consuming.

The distance between Ischia di Castro and Viterbo is small, so there might be a bus between them, or a taxi ride might be cheaper than a car rental, although there is a car rental office in Viterbo if you want a car. Your relative in Viterbo can probably help you figure out that part of the trip.

You will have to define what you mean by "reasonably priced." You can e-mail hotels or b&bs and ask the size of their beds. Sometimes their websites tell you.

The biggest beds I have had in Florence have been at Antica Torre Tournabuoni and Westin Excelsior. The former may offer good rates in March as it is still the off season.

At a lower price point, the beds at San Gallo Palace were also good sized.

Our bed at the Hotel Centrale was perfectly fine for my 6'4 husband. It is very well priced and at a good location.

kfusto.. I have looked at the web site of Antica Torre Tournabuoni..that is our price range.. thank you all.. for some reason I thought that Viterbo was only a short train ride from Florence...my husband wants to rent a car.. which of course terrifies me..lol.. thank you all again.

I have stayed there twice and it is my favorite hotel in Florence, over the course of 18 visits and a dozen hotels. Enjoy!

Italiantable,

Have you considered renting an apartment for a week? We spent 8 days in Florence in 2007 and stayed at Bed and Breakfast La Loggia. I'm 6'3" and the bed was quite large. If you look at their entry in venere.com, you'll get a better idea of it.

HTH

K

Italiantable,

It's not clear to me from your post if you and your husband understand that it is not really
"doable" to drive from Florence to Viterbo and back again on the same day. Even if you just went for lunch, it would be a very hard day of driving. At the end of March, the daylight hours are still fairly short.

And perhaps you already know this, but if you base in Florence, you should only rent the car for the time that you will be out of Florence. It is extremely difficult to drive inside Florence -- many streets are off-limits to non-resident cars -- and if you violate traffic laws in Florence, even if you are a tourist, the police record the rental car license plate and obtain your credit card number and simply charge the ticket to it. It can be hudreds of dollars.

You needn't be terrified of driving in Italy, but city driving is a challenge, and parking is incredibly expensive. If you want a car for reasons other than visiting Ischia di Castro, you should consider staying someplace just outside Florence -- even Siena would be better -- so you can both have the car and visit Florence by bus or train as often as you like.

PS, Italiantable,

Although the train ride from Viterbo to Florence is not as fast as the one from Rome to Viterbo, it is still not a terriblle day of train travel. It is between 3 and 4 hours. Apart from using a taxi or bus to get to Ischia di Castro, you could reach everything you said you wanted to reach, by train.

That said, there is a lot of very beautiful countryside between Viterbo and Florence that can only be seen with a car. Just be sure you don't keep the car when you don't need it in Florence.

A traffic fine will be charged to your credit card *only* if that is what your contract with the rental agency stipulates; most contracts do *not*.

The rental agency charges to your credit card an "administration fee" (the amount varies from 16 to 50 Euro) for providing your personal information to the authorities; this is not and does not include the fine.

The fine notification is sent to your home address; the authorities have one year from the time they obtain your information to do so. The fine for a ZTL infraction is about 100 Euro.

I think we may take a train to Viterbo.. stay the night there and then come back the next day.. I have read about the challenges of driving in Florence (and the fines) and was thinking of renting a car once we get to Viterbo.. but again we have distant relatives in Viterbo so we would coordinate with them..

knickerbocker..we rented an apartment in Rome 3 years ago and that went quite well.. except for the shower.. my husband looked like he was in some type of space rocket cylinder..with his head and shoulders completly out haha.. what a great vacation that was.. I will check your recommendation as well..

Don't know what your itinerary is, but why not fly into Rome, train to Viterbo, then fly out of Florence?

I think Holly has the best idea. Start with Viterbo (not far from Rome) and do your visiting. Then go to Florence for the rest of your week, and fly home from there.

Sorry for the incorrect info on the fines! I've never gotten one, and I seem to be incapable of memorizing the details. I'll defer to others in the future!

My husband is 6'3". A couple of years ago we stayed at the Hotel Alessandra in Florence.
http://www.hotelalessandra.com/

The shower was large enough that DH had no trouble, the beds were large & comfortable, breakfast was ample, the service was wonderful, overall our room was clean & comfortable for both of us. DH even fit in the small elevator.

we really have not set an intinerary yet.. so the idea of flying into Rome.. training to Viterbo.. staying a night and then continueing on to Florence sounds fun.. I will start checking into that....

There is some useful information on train/bus options to Viterbo from Rome on the SlowTrav site from about six weeks ago:

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...m/414000790001

In case I copied that wrong, the last post was June 12, 2010, so you'll have to scroll down a few pages to that date if it hasn't been topped in the meantime.

ok. we are set to visit Viterbo on the 26th, 27th.. we are training down from Florence.. staying one night ..then returning the next day.. does anyone have recommendations for a non smoking hotel option in Viterbo???