Vacation rental for 4 people in Florence Italy

Hi Colette,
Try www.vrbo.com - vacation rentals by owner.

Colette,

I just finished a week at a vacation rental in Florence (one of several rentals I have done through VRBO/Homeaway). I wouldn't recommend this particular rental to you. In fact, unless, someone from the board gives you a 100% positive, glowing recommendation based on their personal experience with a rental, I would recommend going against this route in Florence.

When it comes to apartments in Florence, you are talking about flats/buildings that can be several centuries old. Certain assumptions with regard to water pressure/showers/toilets/washing machines/ dryers/elevators/internet, etc. can't be made with a rental that you haven't personally stayed in. Given this, I don't think the risk/reward is in your favor for vacation rentals in Florence. You might find a gem for a reasonable price, it's unlikely.

We used our Florence rental as our base. We did some overnighters and found the hotels a much better value - 100EUR per night for some great accomadations(so what we didn't have a kitchen, we got free breakfast and didn't have to clean up).

Hotel prices are probably the softest they've been in a long, long time. Use the Graffiti Wall/Rick Steves' Guidebooks/Share your feedback/Italy 2009 to get other peoples recent experience of hotels in Florence.

Best of luck to you.

I would check with Cross-Pollinate. We used them for 2 rentals in Rome, and 1 in Venice. You can search for the number of people in your group and also your price range. I found them all to be just as represented, and the reservation process was easy.

Colette: You said "downtown" Florence but using that word makes it unclear where you mean. Do you mean the historic core area? If you're more specific we can give better advice.I'd read Matt's post twice. The other problem some travelers not familiar with Florence have been blind-sided with is, most people have ended up regretting trying to do these two things at the same time: having a car and sleeping within the historic core area of Florence. The reason doing both of those is not good is: the historic area is blanketed by a camera enforced ZTL (zone of no entry by cars whose license plate is not registered with the city's ZTL enforcement computer) and it has cost unwary travelers here hundreds of dollars in fines which they receive in the mail months after their return.You don't need a car in Florence. If you have one, you'll probably want to carefully avoid sleeping within the historic core. Since sleeping in the historic core is nice, it's just another reason, when visiting Florence, to do what the Italians do: take the train.

You could check with Hotel Dali, they do offer parking.