Monday, August 29, 2011

Websites for Lodging in Italy - with a Pet

My criteria for finding a place to stay in Italy includes:
1. Inexpensive - hopefully under about $35/night;
2. Allow pets - for obvious reasons;
3. Near Transportation - I won't have a car so it should within walking distance from a bus or train; and
4. In or near a city that has easy access for day trips to other cities.

I looked at a lot of websites and many showed properties that were too expensive for me. If you have lots of money to spend, you could look at www.rentvillas.com or www.vbro.com.

Since I am not in that category, I found some other great websites that have a variety of prices. The ones I'm using the most are www.airbnb.com and www.bedycasa.com. I have also used www.venere.com in the past. When you have a dog you want to see in the listing if they allow pets.

I found a really good website www.hostelbookers.com. They had other lodging options besides hostels, but none of their sites mentioned whether they allow pets. When I wrote to them, they told me to tell them which place I was interested in and they would check. Unfortunately, that won't work for me. I don't know where I'm going to be so I need to be able to book spur of the moment places, not have to email a middle man to see if any of them allow pets.

I still hope to make 1-2 reservations before I leave, but if I don't have time, at least I know which websites to use.

Most of my time last night was spent trying to figure out how to get to the Courtyard Rome Central Park (a gift from my sister), from the airport. The hotel website only had driving instructions. Based on a past trip to Rome, driving would be the last thing I would want to do. After a few hours of searching, I finally found the answer: Take FM train (at the airport) to Trastevere Station, then take the FM3 train toward Victerlio/Cesany and get off at Gemelli. I will have my GPS to guide me on foot the rest of the way. (Wishful thinking??)

Three days and counting -

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