Accommodation in France & Italy

[MaitlandGirl]

DD1 (24) and I are in the early stages of planning a trip to France and Italy for either Autumn 2023 or Spring 2024.

We’re booking our flights and accommodation separately (not a package) and I’ve no idea where to start. What sort of accommodation do people use these days? The last time I went away air bnb wasn’t a thing so I’ve no idea how it even works!!

We’re looking at going to Paris, Normandy (for the DDay beaches) and Rennes in France and Rome, Naples and Sorrento in Italy.

So what do people recommend? Air bnb, gite or hotel? Thanks :)

I always use booking.com - you can put in your criteria - pool, balcony, breakfast etc (I always go for those scoring above 8) and it will bring a list of hotels, b&bs and self-catered. You can also search by map.

For cities, I tend to go into trip advisor, look up 'hotels in Paris', add a budget filter, and sort by rating. Then look through the list and check out the location of the ones I like the look of.

Do you want to be in the city at every destination? Italy has excellent trains so you could stay somewhere a bit outside of the city, on the train line, in a self catering AirBnb for a bit at one of those stops. For AirBnB, I put in location and party number, filter by budget, then look at the map and click on results that look like they are in a good place.

Have a great time!