Hotels in Rome, Venice and Florence
 

My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy for early next summer. I know summer is most expensive and busiest, but I'm a school teacher and it wouldn't work for me to take 2 weeks off during the school year. Anyway, I'm fine with finding lodging for just my husband and me. However, we're thinking of going with another couple. If we do this, we'd love to share a room and perhaps cut down on cost. Does anyone know of any hotels that could sleep up to 4 people comfortably? Thanks for your help!!

To get a hotel room that has 2 seperate bedrooms would cost about as much as just booking 2 rooms. Are you actually wanting to share one room?

Also, depending on how long you'll be in each city, you could look into renting an apartment. It's much easier to find a large enough space that's affordable. You can look at www.vrbo.com and choose your country and city.

If you need to save on lodging, which I perfectly understand, consider staying in convents. It would be much nicer to have your own rooms, I'm sure.

Thanks for the tip...we don't mind sharing rooms since we're all friends but since we're all newlyweds, too, then seperate rooms might be nice. Where would I find info. on convents?

Sandi_travelnut: Thanks for the website for apts. I haven't gone to it yet, but can you stay for any length of time?

For convents, do a search on this forum. The web sites are listed numerous times.

The most popular convents seem to be:
Istituto Santa Giuliana di Falconieri
Casa Rosario
Fraterna Domus


You're thinking the right amount of time ahead - because these convents tend to book up quickly. Some but not all have air conditioning.

<i>can you stay for any length of time?</i>

Many apartments will let you rent for 3 nights, some require 5 nights, and yet others require a week. You'll quickly learn to detect which sites cater to which type. My email is jeannebab-AT-comcast-DOT-net.

Go to SlowTrav.com and click through to &quot;Italy&quot;. There you'll find tons of information including how to order a meal, some language tips, and reviews of apartments in each city.

Don't get discouraged. At first it seems overwhelming. Just keep telling yourself you are absorbing knowledge. Start thinking about how you are going to gather and organize the information. I keep an excel worksheet for air, one for hotels/restaurants and another for just notes.

I'd be happy to send you the worksheet I use for itinerary and budget. It helps keep my thoughts organized as I go along...well, not <i>organized</i>, but better than if I didn't use a worksheet!

A website with information about convents
http://www.santasusanna.org/comingToRome/convents.html

The same web site has some good tourist information for Rome including restaurant recommendations.

We're renting a lovely 1 bedroom apartment in Rome for 3 nights for a very reasonable price. The owner has been amazing - securing car transport and more. Try vrbo.com for info on apartment rentals. We used it for this, and for an incredible house on Cape Cod.

Thanks for all these suggestions. I've found a few B&amp;B's in Rome and Venice that look promising. How about Florence? Does anyone have suggestions for reasonably priced hotels (B&amp;B) in Florence?

We have found rooms for 4, but were travelling with our kids. Most of them are 1 large room with a queen, 2 twin beds and 1 bathroom (which in many europe hotels, is quite small). WHat is you budget per couple. There are some very decent hotels at moderate rates.

ALso keep in mind that, in Italy (and most of Europe as well), most rooms for 4 are significantly more than a room for 2 in the same hotel so you aren't necessarily saving that much money.

Hotel Casci has long had the reputation of being one of the best moderately priced Florentine hotels. I also like the location of Hotel Silla..you will have to check prices for both of these since you have not stated your budget. The Trattoria Diladarno also had apartments for rent when I was last there two years ago...if you want to call them I can dig up the phone number.

Not sure if this is realistic, but I want to stay under $150 (US). The lower, the better...but I want decent, clean rooms.

We actually stayed ion a quad at Hotel Casci! If you check their rates though, a quad is almost twice the cost of a double (it varies by time of year).

Casci is a great value hotel in any case.

Thanks--I just sent them an email!!