First trip to Italy--Looking for Budget lodging either B and B or small hotel (not hostels) less than $100 USD a night for 2--anyone with any recommendations of places they know are decent and close to sites we will want to see--found these 2 but not sure if they are close to where I want to be
Venice:will this one be a problem being far away from city center--can I use the Venice card for free transport from here??
http://www.venere.com/hotel/?lg=en&h...4,20090617,2,1

Florence:
http://www.bedinflorence.it/home.htm

Hint: When you have a URL that's really long, go to www.tinyurl.com and have it make a shortened version.

That venere monster of yours would have become
http://tinyurl.com/73u25h

In Venice, the Hotel Rossi served us well, not far from the station, handy to all vaporetto lines -
http://www.hotelrossi.ve.it/eng/contatti.html

In Venice, the Lido is too far away from stuff for me. I think you would be better served to stay in Venice proper. I'd rather pay a bit more and be closer. I think you should be able to find something in the 50 -70 euro range.

We stay in apartments so I can't give any real hotel suggestions.

Hi,
We have stayed at this B&B in Venice and we really enjoyed it. We actually stayed in the Holiday Flat but I think the rooms would be fine too.

http://www.alcampaniel.com/

The owner, Marco, was very nice and we loved the location.

In Florence we have stayed at this place twice: http://www.residenzailcarmine.com/

These apartments are in the Altarno, so you have to walk across the bridge to see most of the sites.

The apartments are new and there is a very nice garden to relax in. It only takes about 5-10 minutes to walk to the main part of Florence.
They cost about 90 Euro per night.

Have a great time in Venice and Florence.

Laurie

DalaiLlama--Sorry for the monster URL...didn't know how to make it smaller so thanks for the hint

Notbob--do apartments rent out for just 3 days or only on a weekly basis? Can you recommend a good apartment that does a 3 day rental?

We actually stayed in the same flat as Laurie! I agree it was very good and inexpensive. Only minutes from the ferry stop.

We also stayed in Florence for 3 days and I can thoroughly recommend Casa Caterina (www.casacaterina.it).
It is just up the street from the Duomo and is very nice.The owners are lovely people.Good luck!

Some apartments do rent for a less than a week. The minimum is usually three nights. Sometimes even the ones that have one week minimums will work with you if they have empty spots they need to fill in.

Here a couple of agencies to get you started.

www.veniceapartments.org
www.viewsonvenice.com

HI born,

I can very highly recommend the B&B Peterson.

We were pleased with our 11 nights there.

More info in my trip report,
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34451044