When in Rome...

I usually try and stay in a central spot when traveling, somewhere near public transport links. 

For the Rome part of our Italian trip, I initially planned on staying in a hotel near the via Repubblica that I found on www.hotels.com. 

Then my husband’s wish list was to stay nearer to the Piazza Navona area.  I looked at this area and wasn't finding anything suitable.  I started looking at the area around the Spanish Steps (Campo Marzo) and the hotel prices seemed a bit crazy. 

I found a fantastic website called www.airbnb.com that lists apartment rentals and managed to find a gem of a place.  The nice thing about Airbnb is that you can see a bit about the owner and the reviews of the guests that have stayed there before.    The place where we stayed was in a fantastic location and was equipped with everything we needed.  The link to the site is here.  I would definitely recommend it.  The nice thing about booking through this site was that we could pay upfront and not have to worry about what the currency would do later, which proved a good move on this trip! 

The owner of the apartment arranged for a driver to collect us from the airport to the apartment which really helped after the long trip.

She and her husband showed us around the area near the apartment, pointing out quaint streets like the Via Margutta, the nearest convenience shop and good places to eat breakfast and lunch.

Airbnb is not really well-known amongst people I have spoken to, but we had a good experience using the site and the reviews were very accurate.  A nice way to meet local people.