We are looking at staying for a month in Italy next summer. We are thinking Sept. and that is where we stop with knowing what we want. We have spent 4 days in Rome and love it, but not too sure where we want to stay.
So we need a suggestion on what city/area to rent in?
Where do we find long turm rentals?
Is Sept. a good month?
Do we want a rental car for day trips?
Any help would be great...........Char & Rick
Bob & Jenny's B&B in Vicenza is great. This city is near Venice,Verona, all 3 of the Lakes,Bolzano,Bologna and Padua. Every train in northern Italy SEEMS to go thru Bologna and all of the others are on the Venice-Milano train line, except for Bolzano (north from Verona) and Lake Como (north from Milano).Ten days up north should allow you to see a great deal.
As too the South, you might prefer a less touristy location, therefore look to Abruzzi, Basilicata or Calabria. Calabria is close to train to Sicily, and ferries leave from Salerno and Naples.
A car is a headache bcuz of parking and accessiblity to some places. Trains go almost everywhere and bus does the rest. Try VRBO and Venere for rentals
I don't have any ideas on where to stay for that length of time but I was in Rome, Venice and Florence from Sept 14 until Oct 6. The weather was beautiful Rome was hot usually in the 80's Venice was cooler - the 70's We had 2 days of drizzle in Florence. Otherwise we found Sept into Oct to be beautiful.
In my opinon the best places for a month long visit would be Roma and Firenze. We have stayed a month in both and will again. In Roma we stay at the Aberdeen hotel (see Rick) and near Firenze we stayed at an agriturisimo. We got ours thru Countryside Vacations and they were very helpful. Countryside-vacations.com. Personally I would use the trains where ever possible and perhaps rent a car for a nice wandering tour of Tuscany. Perhaps 3 or 4 days.
cml
Char, Hotel Moderno (http://www.hotelmodernosiena.it/) rents out furnished apartments in Siena with parking for a car rental. You'll find overall prices in Siena to be better than in Florence (or Firenze if you're a pretentious person who writes in Englitalian). I am not sure how long you can rent out the apartments at Hotel Moderno and what the rates are. But if you find it affordable I would highly recommend it.
Friends rented in the walled city of Luca 2 years ago and loved the location. They did not rent a car, but took trains everywhere from there and did alot of walking in the countryside area. They have 2 teenage girls and they loved to run on top of the wall in the morning. They shopped the local stores and markets. We might look into for ourselves in a few years when planning a trip to Tuscany region. They orginally wanted to stay in Florence but could not find any thing in thier budget there and were pleasantly suprised by Luca.
Wow. A month!!! That is so cool. If it were me I would make homebase in the central part of the country. Near but not in Rome - L'quila (butchered that spelling) is central. I would get a car because you will not want to be restricted to bus and train routes.
You may decide to "double rent" for a couple of days to go north or south on longer than day trips. That is what I did in Nepal. I had a home base where I kept the bulk of my luggage taking only overnight supplies on adventures. But in Nepal that is affordable...
Enjoy the planning!!
