Venice, Florence

Residenza della Signoria is another good one in Florence. Right between the Duomo and Uffizi on Via Calzaiouli. Room spacious and lovely, great rates, location perfect!

First of all, I would ask you to be more specific in terms or dollar/euro amounts instead of nebulous terms like reasonable. This means different things to different people. You could check venere.com and tripadvisor.com for hotels in the cities you plan to visit. Additionally, each site provides many hotel choices, map locations, pricing, and client reviews by people who actually stayed there. Buon viaggio

Point well taken. Possible cities include Venice, Ravenna, Florence, Pisa, Modena, Bolgna, Parma and Milan. Being off season I am finding rooms available for 130 Euros and under. The number of choices is often quite overwhelming. I have found tripadvisor helpful. Will check other site you suggest.

Hi Michele, Venice - La Calcina. Lovely atmosphere in a historic building, excellent breakfast, friendly helpful staff, quiet area, but 5 minute walk to the Grand Canal/Academia vaporetto stop. There is also a vaporetto stop about 100 meters down the street that goes to the train station in one direction and San Marco in the other. Ravenna - Palazzo Galletti Abbiosi. Another historic building, excellent breakfast. It's a short walk from the train station, maybe 10 minutes. The sights in Ravenna are all within 1 square kilometer, so anywhere is good. Florence - I really like the hostel Archi Rossi. 5 minutes from the train station (and buses to everywhere), 10 minutes to the Academia or the Duomo. It is pretty spartan, but very clean, convenient location, with in-house coin-op washers and driers, very nice in the middle of a trip. Pisa isn't worth more than a 1/2 day visit. Take the train from Florence. Milan is also skippable. I love Verona (not YET on your list). Definitely a good choice during off-season. I stayed at Hotel Milano. The location was excellent, so was the breakfast, but the double room was very small. They were in the midst of renovations, I was in a renovated room. It occurs to me that double rooms all have one double bed - sometimes queen, sometimes not. If you don't want to share a bed with your son, you should contact the hotels directly and ask what they can offer.

If you want two beds, ask for "twin."

Thank you all. Your suggestions are most helpful. I will follow up.

Michelle, for Florence, you might try to Hotel Maxim. It's on main pedestrian street between Duomo and Uffizi, less than a block from the Duomo and about 3 blocks from Uffizi. Public transportation is usually unnecessary in Florence, since walking is the best way to get to most sites and distances are short. However, many buses stop near Duomo, so they are accessible when needed (eg, the uphill trip to San Miniato al Monte). I was happy with Hotel Maxim--simple, but en suite and with elevator, reasonable prices, great location.