I will be staying in the following hotels while I am in Italy.

Rome - Santa Chiara
Florence - Hotel Alessandra
Venice - Pensione Wildner

I feel comfortable with my hotel choices for Rome and Florence, but I am nervous about Pensione Wildner. I do not need really fancy accomodations, but I don't really want to stay in a dump either. Does anyone have any feedback on these hotel choices? I am going to Italy in early May so I don't know if I would even be able to find other accomodations at this point.

I love the Santa Chiara.

Regarding the Wildner, location is very central. Have you done a search on it here (use little box above) and/or clicked on Hotels at the top of the screen and looked at comments there, and/or looked for comments at
www.tripadvisor.com?
It's a place that is often recommended, and in fact it has historical associations, but I don't know it personally.

I can relate. We were in Italy at the last week of May until the first week of June 2003. I wish I had known about this forum back then. I was emailing hotels up until the time we were picked up to go to the airport. You still have some time, but you're wise to nail things down early, 'cause it's no fun departing and wondering whether you've secured a place or not. Rome was particularly challenging for me to reserve. We stayed in budget places between 80E and 120E per night, clean, decent, nice locations. Here's where we laid our heads:

Rome: Hotel Santa Prassede (recently remodeled, 2*, walking distance from Termini, laundry service, small, dark room). Given the opportunity, I would pay more money and stay in a more luxurious hotel in THIS city. You need an oasis to come back to after a long day of walking, sightseeing, crowds, traffic, etc., IMHO.

Florence: Hotel Maxim (1* pensione right on the main street near the piazza and the duomo, clean new annex with basic rooms, one of the best bathrooms on our trip, great location, internet, Samantha was super helpful). I would stay there again.

Venice: Locanda San Trovaso (2* moderately priced B&B, friendly owners, quiet, clean, small, cute decor, walking distance to sights). Mark was so helpful, I would stay there again. Venice is a strolling city, and this location affords you that opportunity.

HTH. Enjoy Italy!

We spent 4 nights at Pensione Wildner in early March of this year. My husband and I both liked it very much for these reasons: the location is very central, right on the lagoon, and 5 minutes walk to San Marco's, the friendliness of the staff, the breakfast was quite good, and the restaurant not too bad in general. I was happy to have an in-house restaurant because I threw my back out on our last day and had to spend the entire day in our room. I managed to hobble down for lunch, though.

The downsides: the location! There were hoards of tour groups traipsing in front of the hotel constantly. A quieter location might be more relaxing. The room was a bit of a disappointment, smaller than the website picture hinted at. The view was incredible (overlooking the lagoon), but only accessible from 2 small windows. The bathroom was the best of our trip, with a good shower, lots of light and places to put things. The lack of an elevator wasn't a problem because we were on the second floor and we like the exercise of climbing stairs. The place is a bit shabby, but clean and sufficient for our needs. We paid 120 euros for a view room, an almost unheard of price in Venice. Also, if you're arriving on a vaporetto, there is a stop right in front of the hotel. You don't have to tote your bags all over the place, which is a great advantage. All in all, we would stay there again.

That is, if we go back to Venice, which I doubt we will. Unlike the majority of Fodorites, we were not overly impressed with our stay there. It was incredibly expensive and absolutely overrun with tourists, even in March! We did try to get out of San Marco, but even when we did, we found mediocre food at inflated prices. I think 4 nights was too much. 2 nights would be perfect. Venice is definitely worth seeing because it is so unique; but for a real, live city teeming with vitality, Rome was so much better.

dabodin - You realize, of course, that by expressing any negative sentiment about Venice on this board, you risk incurring the wrath of the Venice Lobby. I happen to agree with you. Venice is overrun with tourists. IMHO, it is a city which only exists for the benefit of tourists. I'm not sorry I went there, I've crossed it off my list, but I have no great desire to return. On the other hand, I will definitely return to Rome.

HI
I am a rabid member of the Venice lobby (I guess), but if you didn't like the place, that's fine. More room for the rest of us.*_)

oops, I was supposed to end that with a smiley

rbrazil: Whew! I'm glad it's not just us. It almost seemed like a Venician Disneyland, sort of stuck in a wierd time warp. Every 10 steps you can buy a cheap mask or tacky piece of glass, but to find a pharmacy that carried some ibuprofen for my back ache, my husband had to jump through incredible hoops. I got the impression that only tourists and very rich people actually "live" there, while all the worker bees are imported each morning on the giant ferry boats. The other major turnoffs were the beggars on bended knee and the African guys selling knock-off purses on every corner. Well, that's my rant for the day!

Elaine, are you the one who turned me on to RealRome? I think it was you, and I thank you with all my heart. We stayed in a fantastic apartment in Trastevere. I reviewed it when I returned. It was the Luce Split apartment . Thanks a bunch.

Hi
No, I"m not the Real Rome person, I'm a Santa Chiara person.

Lori03, there is lots of praise for the Wildner at www.tripadvisor.com

A poster here Bailey always stays at the Wildner & has posted photos from her room. Sorry I don't have time to search the forum for you now, but try doing a text search for Bailey AND Wildner or Bailey AND Venice. In one thread she mentions the rooms with best views/windows. Hers had a balcony.