Need recommendations on hotels for family of 4

Pablo,
We are travelling thru Switzerland and France in July with our 2 kids, 11 & 16. We have booked two double rooms at Backpackers Lucerne @ 38CHF pp/night. We also stayed in 2 double rooms at Albergo Santa Lucia near the Venice train station...2 years ago we paid about 100E per room per night...lovely spot and lovely owners! We did not stay right in Florence, but enjoyed the Castello di Lamole in a quadruple apartment in Greve-in-Chianti in the Tuscan countryside. It was fabulous! I don't have any ideas for Lugano, sorry! Wherever you stay, enjoy your trip!

Pablo: Regarding your request for "budget" accommodations in Venice, if I understand Lisa's post correctly, two years ago she paid what would now be $320 per night (€100 x 2 x 1.6, if the €100/room rate has not increased in two years). This confirms that Venice is a very expensive city for accommodations, with fewer budget options that most cities. I mention this only because you were asking for budget accommodations. Try this one: Casa Arte has a family room: www.casaarte.info. You can probably save some money buying Rick's book, he has a lot of sleeping picks in it. Groups of four have sometimes been able to save money renting an apartment instead of two double rooms, but apartments often require a minimum stay of several days (4 nights or more in many cases).

Venice: Hotel Messner. Florence: Residenza Il Villino.

The Hotel Santa Lucia's rates are currently about 70 Euro for a double with shared bath. They have a website so you can Google them. The Hotel Marin is another budget option, but not as friendly and well maintained as the Santa Lucia.

When travelling with our 2 kids we try to avoid hotels if possible as they end up being expensive and very cramped for space. Appartments work better for us.

In Switzerland we rented an appartment in the Emmental region at equal distance between Bern and Luzern. We just did day trips from there. 900 sqft for CHF 600/week www.kapfschwand.ch/

In Tuscany we'll have an appartment in Tavarnelle, about 30 km south of Florence. It comes with a pool which the kids will enjoy ;-) Found it through www.interchalet.com There are different price ranges, ours comes out at Euro 25/person/day

We got an apartment for a couple of nights in Venice from Hotel d'Art. We were traveling with our three kids and got a really nice two bedroom apartment (no view) for a very good price.

Don't try to park in Venice. It's expensive and time consuming getting in and out of parking. Much better on both the wallet and watch to park on the mainland and take the train into Venice.

Florence - If you can find a place outside of town with convenient public transport to the city center, you will be happier. We stayed in the city center, didn't really like the hotel and had to hike from the nearest available parking. The hotel was the most expensive and least satisfying place we stayed. Based on other traveler's comments, that seems to be the rule rather than the exception in Florence. I expect it will be more comfortable and convenient (and cheaper) to find something outside the center.

Also, get a GPS. We drove without one and wasted a lot of hours because street signs are almost non-existent and most buildings don't have addresses.