Hi,
Can anyone recommend an apartment for 4 adults..probably
2 bedrooms in Florence & Rome (lst choice Pantheon area,
2nd choice Piazza Navona, 3rd choice Campo Fiori)
Would prefer non smoking and air conditioning with a washer
(dryer optional). We'll be in Florence (6 nights) at the end of May and onto Rome for 3 nights in early June.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks...
Hi Shirl. You might try the Palazzo Olivia apartments in the Piazza Navona area (actually the building is located in between P. Navona & Campo de Fiori). They received favorable reviews on Trip Advisor. I'll be staying there in Sept so I can't speak from first hand knowledge but as I said, the reviews were good and I know they have air conditioning and an elevator. Don't know about a washer &/or dryer though. You might inquire. Their web site is: http://www.palazzo-olivia.it/ Their communication was very prompt and courteous. Good luck & happy travels!!
I'm staying in a 2 bedroom apartment in Florence the first weekend of April. It is 180 a night. I'll let you know how it goes.
Hi Shirl,
My wife and I will be staying in an apartment run by Luciano Pascucci. He operates the top rated B & B in Rome according to the Trip Advisor. Luciano also has an aprtment that is 20 meters from his B & B. It is in the Piazza Navona area. If you drew a line between there and the Vatican, it would be in the middle (closer to Piazza Navona I think). His places are about a 15 minute walk to the Vartican.
It does not have air conditioning. I do not know if it has a washing machine or not. We are only staying there 3 nights. I have read such great reviews about his places and his hospitality. These aspects out-weighed the lack of AC. We will have an apartment in tuscany for a week with a washing machine and dryer so I did not inquire about that in our apartment in Rome. The website for his B & B with contact information to inquire about his apartment is:
http://www.lucianopascucci.net/indexeng.htm
I hope this helps. Good luck in your search and in your travels!
The luciano pascucci B & B website states that there is air conditioning. The truth is that his B & B has AC, but his apartment does not. I forgot to clarify that.
I would recommend “La Contessina” in Florence. We thoroughly enjoyed our 7 nights there in November of 2008 and would stay there again if we are ever afforded the opportunity of a return trip to Florence. The accommodations are really nice, free breakfast buffet is good and we found the hosts to be very friendly and helpful. Great location. Our favorite restaurant in FLorence is about 4 doors down from the hotel. Nerone's!!! You must try it. Great food and very, very reasonable prices. Delicious house white wine!! We ate there 4 times.
Enjoy your trip.
Have you tried the www.vrbo.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner) website? There are numerous rentals for Florence and Rome--from the owners directly. I've used this website extensively for rentals in the states, and am renting an apartment in Milan for September.
We stayed for four nights in Rome in September. We stayed in an apartment near the Piazza Cavour, which was a quiet area (many law offices), particularly at night. We rented the apartment through the Residenza Cellini (http://www.residenzacellini.it/). Gaetano, who is one of the owners of the hotel also owns the apartment. We arrived in Rome in a heat wave (98 degrees). The apartment was cool and lovely and quiet. We opened the door of the apartment and there was a long hallway with a herringbone wooden floor and nice furniture. The bedrooms, living room, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen were all off of the one long, elegant hall. The rooms are large with high ceilings. There is a dishwasher, a clothes washer, and a bathtub with a jacuzzi. Depending on who is in your party, it may or may not work with respect to sleeping arrangements. There are two bedrooms: one with a queen bed and one with two twin beds. The bedrooms are big. I believe Gaetano has another apartment in the same bulding. The apartment was just a wonderful, cool, welcome haven to come back to during busy sightseeing days. Gaetano left lots of food for us for breakfasts. There was a great restaurant, the Francescana, a block away. We ate there twice - no tourists. We found a little internet shop nearby, and the bus into the main tourist area was on the other side of the block. We also caught the open air bus at 6:00 p.m. one evening because we were all so tired we could not walk anymore. (The bus is a hop on/hop off bus and the tickets are good for about tweenty four hours as I recall). That was one of the big hits of the Rome portion of our trip - I thought it would be way too corny, but we all loved it. There is also a taxi stand/area by the law courts, which are on the Piazza Cavour. It was a pretty easy walk to a lot of great sites, about twelve minutes to the Spanish Steps. It was easy to get to the Vatican, too. We loved it! Have fun!
I highly recommend the Navona Gallery Suites in Rome. Piazza Navona area.....perfect location for walking to all the sights. We stayed in the Michelangelo Suite which I believe is more suited to a family rather than two couples. I would definitely stay there again. We especially enjoyed the stocked refrigerator and the terrace at the Michelangelo Suite. The suite has air conditioning but no washer. I believe there is a laundromat close by.
In Florence we stayed in the Alberti Apartment in the San Lorenzo Apartments. The agency we rented from was SleepinginFlorence. They have a number of apartments. Our apartment was just like the pictures on their website. We had air conditioning and a washing machine. We also liked the location as it was very central.....especially to shopping.
The apartments we rented in Rome and Florence were clean and well maintained (nothing was broken!). Those who greeted us on arrival were friendly and efficient.
Hope you have a wonderful trip!
Cathy
Dear Shirl
I have booked into a B&B called A Casa di Serena.
I appears lovely; reviews are fantastica and the price is good.
Regards
Shirl, if you want to keep the cost down on this one too, I would recommend that you search on Homelidays.com, VRBO.com, and Cross-Pollinate.com.
We again found our best price by looking OUTSIDE the main tourist areas. We made sure that our apt was either near a Metro, or on a Express bus line.
In Rome, we got our apt (VRBO # 13150) in the Via Veneto area, two blocks from the Nomentana train station (easy airport access), and two blocks from the express bus line (which took 10-15 min to get to either the Spanish steps, or Termini.) It was one bedroom, with a living room that "closed off", and a couch that turned into a bed.
The neighborhood people, restaurants, bakeries, and stores were fantastic and fun. One night we could hear a wonderful choir. We wandered our way to the local parish hall and listened to the childrens choir practice. They could tell we were tourists, and aferward they came up to us and we had a great conversation with them (and we speak no Italian, they spoke limited English.)
The apt was overlooking a park, and river, had elevator, air and wonderful balconys, and all of our payment ($100US/nite) was done in dollars, in the states..
Moral of the story...stay out, just a little, and enjoy the ambience of the real Italy!
We used initaly.com for apartment rentals in both Florence and Rome (last fall). We recommend them highly.
Shirl,
We just returned from Florence and rented our 4-br apartment from Tuscan Feeling (www.tuscanfeeling.com). There are a number of apartments on the website. The accomodations were exactly as presented - clean, close to the Duomo with friendly and efficient service.
