Inexpensive Apartment Rentals in Italy
 

Hi there,

My husband and I are planning our next trip to Italy (May 2004) and I am looking into renting some apartments. We've been to Italy a few times, but have never rented an apartment before. I've done some searches on this site and visited some of the reccommended websites of rental companies. So far, they all seem out of our target price range. The reason I am looking into this option is because I thought maybe we could save some money. (Perhaps this is wrong.)

Does anyone know how I can find out about renting apartments in the following locations: Milan, Lake Como, Verona, Venice, Ravenna and Cinque Terre? I was hoping to try to book places for under $100 a night. Is that possible? We won't be staying a full week in any of these places. Will that be a problem?

Thank you!

Daria

If you go to yahoo (or any other search engine) and type in "Italy vacation apartment rental" you will come up with several hits. That is how I initially found our Roman apartment. Also, go over to www.slowtrav.com and read their vacation reviews. That is an excellent source to get you going.

I see 3 locations here. Most apts do require a week--do you have 3 weeks?

Thanks for the advice. I tried slowtrav.com before and I think the listings were too expensive (because all of the others I looked at were too expensive). But, I will read the reviews. That sounds like a good idea. I usually like to get info here if I can rather than going out cold on the web, because it has proven so invaluable in the past.

We will proably have 18 days, and we aren't doing day trips. In other words, we will be staying in each of the locations I listed (except for one which is yet to be eliminated). Our itinerary will probably look something like this:

Milan 5 nights
Lake Como 4 nights
Venice 3 nights
Verona or Ravenna 2 nights
Cinque Terre 4 nights

Any other help will be appreciated.

My experience with rentals has been in France and Malta, but I have found that the best rates are rentals through owners. However, you will probably not find any that are rented for periods of less than a week. We've had good luck with holiday-rentals.com. I just did a check for rentals in Italy for a week in May 2004 at $700US/wk and found 26, including an apartment in Venice at $566.

Daria, the company we're renting an apartment from in Rome, www.sleepinitaly.com, has apartments in Venice as well. Most are 130 euros a night, but there's one on the list for 100 euros. They accept rentals for as little as three days. We've been very happy thus far in our dealings with them.

We ran into the same sticker shock as you in planning our Italian vacation. I thought I could get by for under 100 euros a night, but such was not the case. My husband was pretty firm, as well, that penny-pinching was alright, but he wasn't travelling that far to stay in a dump! Believe me, I did plenty of research to make us both happy. You are quite fortunate in this respect, that you are planning so far in advance. Just keep on reading and researching. Good luck!

Thank you all very much! Hadn't heard of holdiay-rentals.com, so I will check that out.

I looked at the listings on sleepsinitaly.com and I am very glad to hear that someone has been happy with that company. I will look into that further. It looks like I have an uphill battle here, but I am still going to try to get a good deal.

There are some rentals on www.domani-usa.com which are affordable, including some withOUT those seven-day minimums. I didn't check their current inventory to see what might be a match for your itinerary.

Best wishes,

Rex

You might look at Eurocamp. It's a British organization (I think) and they have campgrounds all over Europe. But, in many of the campgrounds they have small wooden bungalows with kitchens, or mobile homes. I haven't stayed at one. But, we considered one in the Dordogne. Instead we stayed at a gite, but took a look at the Eurocamp near Sarlat and the bungalows and mobile homes looked adequate, but not fancy. Look at only the 4 stars, maybe some 3 stars. They will send you a catalog if you request one. Some places will rent for less than a week. We just returned from Europe and found Italy lodging to be higher than neighboring countries this year. (It was much less 3 years ago even with the Euro calculated into the picture). You might search under Alberghi or pensions in Google.

Daria:

We just rented the San Aponal apartment from Venice Rentals and were very pleased with the apartment, location, as well as services. You can find them at venicerentals.com, and they have several properties to choose from.

We traveled in both Florence and Venice, renting in both cities, and did feel that it saved us a lot of money overall. It was our first time going the apartment route, too, and things went very smoothly. We really enjoyed having so much more of our "own" space.

Good luck!

Hi Daria!

My husband and I just returned from Venice yesterday. We found an apartment for 90 Euro a night. It was small, but we loved it. There was a kitchen (no oven, but stove, sinks, dishwasher, refrig, etc.), bathroom with shower and two rooms upstairs. A bedroom with a queen size beed and a standing closet. The other room had a couch with a pull-out bed, another closet and a TV with satellite.

It was incredibly hot though, as the apartment had no AC. But, I would think in May, the two fans they have in the apartment would be good enough.

There's a small grocery store very nearby.

I highly recommend our place. The owner, a young man named Antonio, and his mother met us there and gave us a lot of information. There's also a vaparetto stop about a two-minute walk from the aparment (Ca' Rezzonico on the Nr. 1 line).

Here's a link to the apartment. Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you'd like more info.

http://www.vrbo.com/20217

Cindy