Renting an Apartment in Europe

Renting an Apartment
in Europe

Considerations | Sources

Considerations

or many an apartment may seem a desirable alternative to a hotel or other type of accommodation on a European holiday.

Perceived Advantages?

	Cost
	Space

Cost
e've seen no apartments that offer a cost advantage for two persons. Occasionally, ignoring other factors, we've seen some that might be priced advantageously for four. For six or more an apartment might be a good choice just looking at the cost of lodging.

Space
partments will generally be larger than equivalent hotel rooms. Some consider this a plus. Although, we spend very little time in our room while anywhere in Europe and find the space in European hotels quite adequate.

Possible Disadvantages

	Cost
	Location
	Convenience
	Rental length

Cost
s noted, there generally have to be at least four persons in a group, usually more, for an apartment to offer a significant cost advantage over an equivalent hotel room. This is especially true in larger cities. In Switzerland there seem to be a number of apartment options that offer lower cost than hotels.

Cost savings may be improved, however, by cooking in the apartment, though this is a convenience consideration. Also, certainly in Rome for example, eating local food may be one of the important reasons for visiting the city or area.

Location
ur research has located few affordable apartments in major cities (e.g. Rome) that are located conveniently in terms of our three most important considerations: sights, restaurants and transportation. If you find savings, you may offset them in time lost commuting to points of interest. (Commuting costs are usually negligible.) And, you may find yourself far enough away from major restaurant centers that you'll be unable to take advantage of some or all of the major dining pleasures of a visit.

Fortunately, in the Berner Oberland you can find apartments conveniently situated in highly desirable villages like Mürren and Wengen.

utside of a hotel and in a residential area, you'll generally be on your own to locate transportation routes, food stores, laundry sources ... and if you're not at least a little adept in the local language you may find it difficult to get information and shop. This becomes less important on a longer visit where you can afford more time to invest in orientation.

Convenience
inding breakfast ready in the morning in a hotel gives you more time for sights. Having to shop for your dinner detracts from sightseeing. Sightseeing time is cut if you must to commute to and from the city center.

Rental Length
ften rentals are for a week at a time, and some require a Saturday arrival. Convenient only if that matches your plans.

Alternatives

f space is your objective, there are no good ones, except expensive hotel suites. In major cities less-expensive hotels and pensions are the likely alternative, and in Rome convents provide another low cost source of lodging.

In areas like the Berner Oberland 'chalets' like the Chalet Fontana in Mürren and the Chalet Trogihalten in Wengen offer accommodations at lower cost than hotels and with breakfast as well.

Sources

Switzerland

here is no universal source for finding rooms and apartments in Switzerland. homestay.ch has a limited number of listings.

The local tourist boards (ask the SNTO for their information packet) will be most helpful. (See our list for Berner Oberland tourist offices and web addresses.) All have fax, many are on the Internet, and most/all conduct business adequately in English. Work directly with the village tourist board in which you're interested. The Interlaken board, for example, purports to represent the entire Jungfrau region, but has a reputation for a distinct Interlaken bias. Most/all of the resort destinations have a catalogue/brochure of available holiday apartments and rooms.

Rome

e're unaware of any single non-commercial comprehensive source for Rome.

The Italian Tourist office may have information.

Check AltaVista (or other search engine); keywords "rental apartment Rome" produce several links to individual properties.

Info on bed and breakfasts and convents in our Rome Hotels page.

Commercial Sources

We have used none of these and have received feedback on only Interhome and Roman Homes. The listings are provided as a service without recommendation.

Interhome
Claims access to 20,000 'rental homes' in Europe and may specialize in Switzerland, and in resort (mountain) areas. Multiple 'net postings have suggested they may be somewhat expensive, and also somewhat high pressure in terms of "book now - it may be gone tomorrow."

Bonnie Green (r.m.green@mcmail.com) writes:

We have used Interhome many times in our travel to Switzerland. You book up to 2 years in advance but you don't pay until about 8 weeks before departure and you can cancel without charges. Many return to the same property year after year.

Accommodation varies and you have to careful about room descriptions.

If you hate to stay in hotels with a family I highly recommend trying Interhome ... but keep your expectations realistic.

Untours
Covering much of Switzerland, Germany and some of Italy (but not Rome).Untours include air transportation, an apartment and staff support useful to help enjoy your stay in the area. The basic package is for two weeks. Packages can be obtained without air. In the case of Switzerland Swiss Passes are included. We've seen a few comments on the web and AOL indicating high satisfaction with the program. For us, the apartment locations in the Oberland are not convenient to the most attractive and desirable areas where we think you'd want to spend most of your time.

ScalaReale is a very reputable tourist services operator in Rome and does from time to time offer a number of apartment listings. However at end of July, 2000 these were not available.

Romanhomes appears to have an interesting selection of apartments. You'll enjoy the website at the least.

Doorways "... provide villa rental vacations in Europe ... rang(ing) from simple, lovely farm apartments to elegant villas with staff."

Barclay International Group (Barclayweb)
Among our favorite destinations Barclayweb covers only Italy. The web pages are agonizingly slow to load. In addition to apartments they also offer such supplemental services as car rentals, sightseeing tours, theater tickets, rail passes and even cellular telephone and laptop computer rentals. Rome apartments seem to be in the expensive category in most cases, but then it's an expensive city.

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