Italy Accommodation

The Yellow Hostel in Rome

When the first things you see of Italy hostels or hotels are things that are new, things that have just recently opened or places they’ve just recently expanded, your first impression is that business must be good. And that’s just the impression one gets when one approaches Yellow Hostel in Rome - they’ve recently opened up a bar at street level that is beautifully decorated in an art nouveau style with lots of dark hardwood, cool chandeliers, cheap food and drinks (plus special discounts for hostel guests), and a flat panel satellite TV in the back. It’s enough to make you wonder if you could just bring your pillow to the bar and never leave.

But there’s more.

I got my tour of Yellow Hostel (often called “The Yellow”) from its manager, Sabrina, and her adorable pug Pumba. From the glorious entry of the Yellow Bar, she led me down a narrow staircase near the door to the hang-out space below. It would be cave-like, for the low ceilings, brick walls, and arched nooks - except that all the walls and ceilings are painted bright white, so the space feels inviting rather than claustrophobic. There are cushions on the benches, a foosball table, books tucked onto shelves and a stereo in the corner. It’s the perfect place to chill at any time of day, and the bar (with its cheap eats) is only a few steps up the stairs.

>>Check out my other Rome hostels reviews, too!

Date: April 30th, 2008 | 2 comments

Hotel Dalla Mora: Quiet Budget Hotel in Venice

Some people visiting Venice want to stay no more than a few feet from Piazza San Marco, and who can blame them? Until my last trip to Venice, I put myself firmly in this category. I love the proximity to the stunning Basilica di San Marco, and until this last trip I accepted the crush of other tourists in the area as the price of being so near to the church. But for my future visits to Venice, and for anyone else who prefers a bit of solitude around their hotel after swimming upstream against a proverbial sea of humanity all day, there are plenty of discount hotels in Venice on quiet side streets and little-used canals throughout the city’s less-visited districts. I found one of those hotels during this last trip to Venice, and even though it’s in a peaceful area it’s only a few minutes’ walk from the train and bus stations.

The entrance for Hotel Dalla Mora is at the end of a tiny passage - the “street” just sort of dead-ends at a quiet canal near the edge of the Santa Croce district. This one-star hotel offers the distinct perk of having a terrace overlooking its quiet little canal, and some of the rooms overlook the canal as well. There are only 14 rooms in the entire hotel - six in the main building (where reception, the breakfast room and the terrace are), and eight more in a building just in front of the main entrance. All the rooms in the main building have en suite private bathrooms, while some of the rooms in the other building make use of shared bathrooms. All the rooms are blissfully television- and telephone-free, so you can really relax during your vacation!

Date: April 23rd, 2008 | No Comments

Academy Hostel in Florence

Florence is one of those cities that is overrun with tourists pretty much year-round, so prices for accommodation are higher as a result. Finding a cheap place to stay is a must if you’re traveling on a budget, but not everyone likes the dorm-room atmosphere of hostels. Thankfully, there are hostels that don’t really feel like hostels - and the Academy Hostel in Florence is one of them.

To start with, if you’re used to Italy hostels only being cheap when they’re miles away from anything you want to see, you’ll be amazed when you see where the Academy Hostel is in Florence - it’s not only within sight of the Duomo, you can see the Duomo from some of the rooms and hear the bells from the Campanile loud and clear. The front door to the hostel is less than a block from Duomo Square. In short, the location is enough to make anyone say “wow.”

On top of that, the hostel itself is new - though it’s in an historic building, the interior has been entirely remodeled and renovated, and the hostel was just opened in December of 2007. Everything is spic and span, and although the rooms had a bit of that hospital-room ambience when I visited, I was told by Ivan, the manager, that things were scheduled to be painted the week after I left. So it’s likely that there’s quite a bit more color in the Academy rooms now.

Date: April 16th, 2008 | No Comments

Locanda Daniel in Florence

For budget travelers who have graduated from big hostel dorm rooms but haven’t yet quite reached the budget hotel stage, Italy has plenty of options. Many are called things like “residenza,” “locanda” and “soggiorno,” and most Italian towns have several in this category. I visited one in Florence called Locanda Daniel which is very small (only five rooms!), and could be a great option for budget travelers who still want a little bit of charm in the heart of the city.

Locanda Daniel is on the busy Via Nazionale not far from the San Lorenzo church and the leather market along Via dell’Ariento. The street itself is noisy, but the double-paned windows on the street side block out the noise so it’s peaceful inside the locanda. With only five rooms, we’re not talking about a big place here - it’s basically one hallway with doors opening onto rooms along one side. All but one of the bedrooms has windows that open onto Via Nazionale, with the remaining bedroom (a double) having the only view of the dome on the Florence Duomo. (Unfortunately, it was occupied when I visited, so I didn’t get to see it.)

Date: April 10th, 2008 | 1 comment

Ostello Archi Rossi in Florence

Florence, like the other heavily touristed cities in Italy, is expensive for travelers. There are a couple of things about Florence that make it easier to spend quality time there without spending a fortune as well. One is that it is a popular place for students to come to study language (among other things), so you know there have to be options for people on a student’s budget. The other is that there are several high-quality hostels right in the historic center of Florence. One of the larger hostels is the Hostel Archi Rossi on Via Faenza near the train station.

The Archi Rossi Hostel (Ostello Archi Rossi in Italian - the neon sign above the door is in Italian, so look for the big blue “Ostello” sign) is just a few minutes walk from Florence’s Santa Maria Novella train station, and only another few minutes walk from most of the stuff you want to see and do in Florence. The reception area is blessed with two-story-high walls, almost all of which are covered in paintings done by previous guests - and these aren’t random graffiti or amateur artwork, either. The murals are beautiful, colorful, and clearly done by people with some serious art training. I didn’t ask, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the people who did them were art students in Florence who happened to be calling the Ostello Archi Rossi home during their schooling.

I was given a tour of the hostel by Angela, whose English is impeccable; there were a few people at the front desk when I walked in, all of whom spoke at least a little English. I visited during the period when the rooms were closed for cleaning (the common areas and reception are always open), so was able to get a peek at several different kinds of rooms as well as the common areas.

Date: March 31st, 2008 | 1 comment