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We used monasterystays.com to book in Rome, Assissi, Florence, and Venice. Pleased with each location and the ease of booking. Next time we might try booking direct but I’m not sure if it is worth the hassle. May 2025 trip planned, so I’ll report then

Tickets already booked.
AirBnB seems risky to me - if the owner feels he can get more money, what prevents him from canceling last minute?
We sent one booking request through Booking.com, and the owner never replied. I wonder if they follow the same model as AirBnb where home owners can rent out their spare apartments.

Theft while traveling is a valid concern, so I offer this advice. Do not take or wear expensive jewelry, watches, etc. actually anything that you would feel very upset about losing. That will make your life easier. Keep money, passports and cards you do not need at hand in inside pockets, etc. Don’t leave important things in hotel rooms. Now, fact is, we do all the time, but we don’t flash things around and I just don’t worry about it. Fact is, we have been pickpocketed and had a bag stolen right here at our home airport in the US, so be watchful, but don’t let worries like that ruin your trip.

I am not understanding your situation with Booking. You do not have to contact the establishment to book, you book through Booking directly. Your story does not add up to me, so perhaps you can clarify. EDIT: depending on when you first contacted them, some places might be "seasonal" in Europe and only are checking messages periodically. I would imagine beginning around April 1st places may return to full staff, too.

IF a place cancels on you, Booking at least has excellent customer service to assist in finding a comparable room. I have yet to have to use this. Air B&B might offer that too. It has been a long time since I have used it. But there are SEVERAL fodorites that swear by the service. EDIT: you can always confirm with your lodging a few days before your flight just to make sure you are set with the reservation.

And for giggles, I looked up triple rooms in Rome for your nights near central station and located LOADS of options. I do not know what your budget is, but for 7 nights, the accommodations listed are averaging around $200 USD per night. For a triple room in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe, that is probably the best you are going to find.

I mean this with as much gentleness as I can provide, something has to give here. It is either your budget or you have your mind set on something that might not be possible. Perhaps if you provided your budget, we can try to assist further.

I understand the safety concerns. I am a woman who travels solo. And perhaps you have been a victim previously (as have I - in my home town in one of the safest, wealthiest areas of California). And to be honest, staying near the train station is exactly where I would NOT want to be staying if that is my concern, but that is me. The advice sassafrass gives is good and is valid for everyone. Wearing money belts under your clothing with your passport is the best piece of advice to keep your important belongings safe. Anyone can steal from you anywhere you go. I do not mean to downplay your concerns, really. But I have yet to have gotten anything stolen from my bags in a hotel or other lodging. I lock my bags when I am not in the room (which would not stop someone if they really wanted to). And do not bring anything with me that is valuable and/or cannot be replaced easily. I do this when I am staying somewhere in the States, too.

We always travel with a money belt and keep our passports and credit cards tucked away. We keep a small amount of cash more accessible. I also use a crossbody purse and keep it in front of me.

I agree with not taking anything valuable or leaving valuables in your hotel room.

I'll often contact a hotel directly if I have a doubts about the place. How they respond to questions often can provide clues the reviews don't.

But I think the OP tried contacting an apartment. Something like an AirBnB?

likejudo, do you realize where Via delle Calasanziane is located? If you think of Piazza Navona as being about the center of Rome, it's over five miles from there and nearly four miles northwest of the Vatican, seven miles to the Colosseum. Sorry to say, this is a terrible location. It's too far to walk to anything you want to see, and even on the bus, you will spend a lot of time on those buses, especially if you are unfamiliar with Rome buses. I highly recommend that you look for something closer to the center (and preferably not close to the train station).

Perhaps. Or maybe i took their statement, "We sent one booking request through Booking.com, and the owner never replied" too literally? I have contacted accommodations before as well via Booking.com but not for a booking request since the platform does not require those types of interactions (usually) to actually make a booking.

Our budget is max $1000 for 7 days or around $120-150 per night including all the taxes. I copy pasted the email from Booking.com below, and their final email to us.

Booking request sent for Boutique appartamento di lusso nel centro di Roma

Booking.com

to me

Sat, Mar 9, 2:47 PM (3 days ago)
Your booking request was sentHi,

Your booking request for Boutique appartamento di lusso nel centro di Roma was sent to the host.

You can expect a response before 4 PM on Mar 10, 2024 .

What happens next?The host now has 24 hours to accept or decline your booking request – we’ll send you an email when they’ve made their decision.

If they accept your request, you'll then have 24 hours to complete payment to confirm your booking.

10
Boutique appartamento di lusso nel centro di Roma


Reservation details 7 nights
2 adults , 1 child
Check-in May 22, 2024
Check-out May 29, 2024
Total price (in property currency) € 602*
*This is the current total price of the property, but the total price may be different after the host accepts your request. If the price changes, you’ll be shown the new price and can decide whether you want to finish your booking.
Message to host Good morning. My wife, myself and our child will be visiting Rome for one week from May 22 arrival evening and departure on May 29 morning. We are sightseeing Colosseum and Sistine Chapel. How far is your apartment from train station?
Note:
It’s the host’s decision to use the request to book model and to decide whether to accept or decline a request.
Booking.com Oosterdokskade 163 1011 DL Amsterdam The Netherlands
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Request expired
Your booking request has expiredIt has been over 24 hours since your booking request has been sent to .Boutique appartamento di lusso nel centro di Roma Unfortunately the host has not responded, so your request has expired.

This one didn’t work out, but there are plenty of other properties ready to welcome you.


Boutique appartamento di lusso nel centro di Roma
22 May - 29 May
2 adults, 1 child
$522*
Price $522*
*This is the current total price of the property, but the total price after the host accepts your request may be different. If the price has changed, you’ll be shown the new price and you can decide whether you want to finish the booking.

KTtravel Thanks, I will get a money belt. Should we carry our backpacks around?

SusanP Everything is in Italian (all the place names) so I do not know where to look. I was just going by price and somewhere in Rome. The search boxes do not provide a way to look for specific localities within Rome. Do you have any suggestions where to stay?
On the other hand, when we visited Cancun pre-Covid, we did not stay at the usual tourist spots - resort on the beach, but stayed at a reasonably priced Ramada Inn in the town. It was great talking and interacting with the locals in our broken Spanish and traveling on the local buses just like them. Even the recommended restaurants were upscale and packed with tourists (and tourist prices) and the restaurants where the locals ate were more authentic. I felt we had a better experience than the tourists who were insulated away in their fancy resorts, gourmet meals and air-conditioned tour buses.

OP, you could always enter the name of the establishment into Google maps to see its location. Google also has a translate feature.

I searched a bit on one of those Monastery stay websites upthread and I hate to tell you, most of those are well outside your price range, too. But there are some (priced per person).

Thank you for clarification on your Booking. It was a few days ago and some accommodations' staff just may not be there everyday.

At this point, I've done all I can to try to help. Good luck.

**Has anyone had any experience with monasterystays.com ?**

Monastery Stays is a reseller and they mark prices up (10-20 euro per night) compared to if you book directly with the convent. It's a good place to search for the amenities you want and get an idea of prices and then contact the convent/monastery directly. There are approximately 250 convents in central Rome. Some are upscale (like the one in front to the Vatican towards Castel Sant'Angelo) and some are bare bones (a bed and a cross with shared bathrooms, no breakfast). Some have curfews (as early as 9 or 10) and some don't. If you see something on Monastery, just google the name of the convent/order to get the info to contact directly or many have their own web page or even Facebook. There is typically a 2 night minimum.

There used to be a website called hospites.it that had all the convent info and contacts, but seems to now be defunct. 060608 used to list them all under religious, but it's not an easy site to use and they have changed the way to search. Here's the link for Rome centro and most if not all are convents (haven't looked through as there are only 5 or so listed per page and there are dozens of pages to click through).

https://060608.it/it/accoglienza/dor...r-ferie/page/1

I'm sure I have a list at home, but am traveling and it will be a couple of weeks before I could access it. The last time I looked at prices, they ranged from 20 euro per night for bare bones very central to 400-500 euro for upscale in front of the Vatican.

I don't think you can compare Cancun to Rome. The tourist areas are popular because they are near the things you want to see. I like to stay in the Piazza Navona area. Not only is it my favorite place, it's halfway between the Vatican and the Colosseum, close to a lot more things, lots of good restaurants in the area, and lots of bus connections.

If you don't restrict yourself to convents, you can go to booking .com and do a search. I tried it for your dates. It required me to put in the age of your child, which I didn't know, so I arbitrarily put in 7. You can also filter it by budget and any other things you want. There were quite a few options, but be sure to look at location (preferably less than a mile from the center) and reviews. A lot of them in your price range don't have great reviews, so check them out. Sometimes a bad review is because of something you don't care about (such as no gym in the hotel, for example). You're going at a popular time and are late to be booking, which also might be affecting your choices. Good luck!

Also be aware that you should book the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums (which you need to go through to get to the Sistine Chapel). The night visit to the Vatican is good because, while there are a lot of people, it's not such a mob. The night visit to the Colosseum is NOT good, because it's so dark that you can hardly see anything.

You should go to a book store and buy a map of Rome or buy a guide book that has a fold out map. No bookstore? Order a map and guide book. It will be the best money spent on your trip. I know we all rely on technology but a simple paper visual can be really helpful. I love those smallish maps with little pictures of famous landmarks, but they can be really tiny. Two different maps are nice. When you look at one and see where you are, you can see how far apart things are and their relationship to each other. Look at the legend on the map for distance.
We have stayed near the train station twice. I did not feel unsafe at the time, but it was not very convenient. it would be even less so with a child, depending on the age.

Buy a little language book with a menu and at least phrases for you to ask for a bathroom, tell a taxi where to go, etc.

Extra advice. For dinners, even for simple places, stop and make a reservation for dinner later, even only an hour later is better than not having a reservation. They will have a table for you and you will be welcomed. That is considered polite in Italy.

No, do not carry a backpack around except for a lightweight thing to carry your umbrella, water, map, guide book, etc. You do not need to have a bunch of extra stuff to lug around and look after, or to bump into people. Streets are crowded. Backpacks make you a target. Restaurants are crowded. There will not be extra chairs for things and you don’t want things on the floor for waiters to trip over. Also it is easy for anyone walking by to grab stuff off the floor. Leave your stuff in your room. Of course, I don’t know how old your child is. Do they need snacks, diapers, etc. You do not even need backpacks at all for this trip. The invention of wheeled luggage makes them unnecessary. I take a super cheap (think dollar store cheap) ultra light weight tote or nylon backpack in my suitcase that I take out for use while touring. All you need in it is maybe water, guide book, etc. nothing you will cry over if you lose it.
I strongly recommend you buy a Rick Steves guide book. He give lots of basic travel tips.


If you still do not have lodging, look in Trastevere. The location is not perfect, but is not bad and rates are good. I would stay there. It is across the River from main sights, but easy walking and there are plenty of restaurants, at least there were pre-Covid.
check these out and look at the map.
cheap hotels in trastevere rome Italy

Thank you both so much! I just now received a reply from a convent and made the booking. The price was also very reasonable.
Do you recommend a guided tour of the Colosseum and/or Sistine chapel? If so, which one.

Sassafrass our child will be 13. Yes, I am learning Italian from the Mango Languages app.

Baylor Suites in Trastevere. Have a look. Just one example. There are tons of little hotels and homes that rent rooms.
pull up the map of Trastevere.
Personally, I rarely do tours (especially inside places) because I prefer to read about places and take a little guide book along. I like doing research. Lots of people like audio. I prefer to mostly look at things and read about them. I try to read a lot ahead of time.
However, some people love tours or have little time before a trip and many people do tours to help them get through lines quickly.

13 is a great age for your child to be on this trip. Have them research the places and things they will see. Can you watch some videos together about the Colosseum, etc.

Language programs are great. Add to that a little folder of some kind that is a menu and phrases, to carry with you. They are so handy.

Is this a different place you have booked? Where is it located?

Guided tours can be good to get information about what you're seeing, especially if you don't want to do a bunch of research. Definitely get your son involved. If you decide to do the night visit to the Vatican, I think you have to do a tour. Book it on their website.