Hi,

We are looking to spend

1) 2-3 weeks in June traveling around Europe / staying in one town or city.We think it would be cheaper if we stayed in one small town/city and rent an apt instead of moving around. We're thinking somewhere along the coast - Barcelona/ Marseille...Any place you think we should be - to enjoy summer, coast, cheap rent (~$1000 per month). Our only requirement in high speed internet,cleanliness, kitchen.
2) Conference in Salerno, Italy in early July. We will probably rent an apt for 1 week.
3) Travel from Salerno, Italy to Cambridge, England - 1-2 weeks: drive/train.

Any suggestions on trip? We have been to and loved Siena - 1 week, Montepulciano - 1 week, Paris- 2 weeks, Rome - 4 days. We want to try something new..

Thanks,
S

One more thing, would love to drive/train TO Salerno also..

You are looking for less than €700 for a month in resort areas? That is VERY low for vacation rentals.

"2-3 weeks in June traveling around Europe / staying in one town or city" I think that part is confusing. Do you want to travel or stay in one location?
"3) Travel from Salerno, Italy to Cambridge, England - 1-2 weeks: drive/train." It can prove difficult to find a car hire company that allows you to take a UK car on a ferry and into mainland Europe. No matter which country you hire the car in you have to return it back to that country or pay high reparation fees.
Most of Europe use Euros so you should give your prices in that currency.
There area lot of websites that give you prices of accomodation, like these below.
http://www.homelidays.com/
http://www.toprural.com/
http://www.niumba.co.uk/

As janisj said, your accommodation budget is unrealistic. It amounts to about 22 Euros/night for 2 of you. You would be hard pressed to stay in hostel dorms for that amount.

Also, if you are really on a budget, all that moving around will cost quite a bit.

I searched the Gitesdefrance website for gite rentals near La Rochelle and Ile de Re--just picked this area off the top of my head because it sounds nice--and the lowest-priced property was 220 euros/week in the off season, the highest-priced property was 1330 euros/week in high season. June is considered mid-season, so the rates would fall in between these. You can get a better idea by searching gitesdefrance by number of bedrooms and level of amenities, which I couldn't do, not knowing your situation.

You might do a Gitesdefrance search for gites d'etape (in English, stopover gites), which are hostels and very reasonably priced, though basic.

http://www.gites-de-france.com/gites/uk/rural_gites

Have fun doing the research.

the cheapest way to get from salerno to Cambridge will probably be by flying Ryanair to London Stanstead, then getting the train from there to Cambridge.

it will be very expensive to hire a car and drive all that way with ferry and overnight stop/s.

you might be able to find a cheap apartment for $1000 through one of the owner rental sites like VRBO or Homes Away, if you are not very picky. they are generally cheaper than ones run by agencies.

good luck!

ps - the cheapest flight I could find was on ryanair from ciampino to Stansted at €22.99 each, which with taxes etc. ends up as €101 for you both.

http://www.bookryanair.com/SkySales/FRSelect.aspx

you will not be able to drive for anything like this.

Hi Sorry for the confusion,
1) Ideally, we would stay 1 week each in a new place, but if renting 3 weeks together is cheaper, then we will stay in one place. I think a budget of E1000 is more realistic. We do not need to stay in the center of town or in expensive towns. I was hoping the forum would introduce/suggest towns along the coast that are not terribly well-known and hence, possibly cheaper.
2) We will consider flying from Salerno to Stansted or taking the train and stopping at a couple places on the way back.

By the way, we are flying in from NYC. So to maximise our exposure and limit backtracking we were considering
(VERY roughly):
NYC - Barcelona/S.France - Salerno - Lake como - Paris - Cambridge.

Thanks,
S

Hi, S:

I don't know why you are getting the responses you are getting. I'm curious if any of the above posters have ever rented in Salerno or near Sete or other destinations around Marseilles or in Marseilles. -- ?
I don't think your budget for the vicinity of Salerno is unrealistic at all, nor for the coast of France that is not, as you specify, super-touristy.

Try a website like this,

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/set...fa/find.squery

or study a map the South of France and the towns around Salerno, and then do google searches with the names of those towns plus the words "holiday rental". Places like Agripoli, or the Parco Cilento or Furore might do you very well.

You can easily and cheaply train from Salerno to Napoli or even Rome, so you can probably find a cheap flight to one of London's airports.

Sounds like a great trip to me, and the more you get away from the high priced famous tourist resorts, the more fun you will probably have.

By the way, here are some beautiful holiday rentals in a beautiful town in coastal Catolonia that fit your budget.

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/pal...fa/find.squery

I meant to add, you can ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia and train from there to Salerno.

However, cheap flights will surely give you more options.

Thank you stepsbeyond.Will look.
And thanks to everybody for the links and info.. Will update when I have something more concrete that needs input..

S