Grrrrrrr... LOVE italy, LOVE italians, HATE how slack the customer service is. Can anyone help Aitch find an apartment to stay in for a week in Rome at the end of May?

[AitchTwoOhelicopterfraek]

sorry about that, it's naff when you put your own name in a title but i'm a bit desperate.

anyhoo, i know, i know, i'm rubbish, i always go to Rome but you know a holiday is about me having a nice time and i know the city so well.

so i'm looking for CHEAP accommodation (under 100 euro per night) in Rome for between the 27th May and 4th June.

i've found some great places on a website but when you email they just try to upsell you to more expensive accommodation and so far have taken 72 hours to get back to me anyway so it's most frustrating. i've phoned and emailed etc but they couldn't care less really...

does anyone have any recommendations? (at this rate i'll be forced to ask my Italian mates which would be fine were it not for the fact that they would instantly invite us to stay with them, the generous bastards, and it would be awkward refusing but all i want to do is potter around just the three of us).

really it needn't be nice, just fairly central. dd can sleep in our bed if necessary so we don't need a lot of space, i'd rather spend money in restaurants than on accommodation that we'll just be flopping into anyway.

areas? navona, colosseo, spanish steps, trastevere, campo di fiori, anywhere really. preferably not st p's as it's a bit antiseptic round there.

if anyone can help me that would be FABULOUS. i've looked here www.rentalinrome.com and here www.homelidays.com mostly so far, so any good websites (with some actual fookin customer service) would be really helpful.

unfit? are you around?

Hi Aitch, Brangelina has just directed me here from little italy threas. I live in Rome, have you got sorted now? Anything you still need help/advice on?
Re that article on Rome not being good for kids-bollocks!!!! Never had a problem. I live near the Vatican (and near Balduina which you mentioned earlier), I walk everywhere with ds. Got a maclaren buggy, no issues with cobbles. Loads of little kids playparks if you know where to go. Nice park and play bit in the grounds of castel sant'angelo where we go a lot, villa borghese park, villa pamphilli park etc etc. First time ds was out of buggy to walk he toddled from the Jewish Ghetto via Pantheon to Via del Corso on those same cobbles and had a ball. Plus never have a problem in restaurants, day or night-he gets spoiled rotten wherever we go, off menu half portions of pasta no worries. Agree with Brange, Italian fast food is million times healthier than most fastfood. Slice of pizza bianca from a bakers does ds and fruit is available on stalls everywhere you go. Get the impression that the writer of article would feel more comfortbale with having kids running round an air con shopping mall with MacD's
Anyway, if you need any Rome advice let me know. Re your buggy query it depends on the baggage handlers at the other end as to whether you pick up buggy at steps of plane or off baggage collection, no policy as such. I'd say 90% of time I get mine at steps of plane. Ciampino is teeny airport anyway so you don't have to go too far even if you don't get it immediately

actually one thing that is a bit crap re kids here thinking about is hardly any lifts for buggys at metro stations. So worth staying somewhere you can walk everywhere or get bus/tram. Only one I can think of on metro A related to centre with lifts is cipro. There is usually someone who'll offer to help you with carrying buggy but is a pain.

well this place that i want to stay at is on the tram 8 line, IF THEY EVER ANSWER ME. i'm a bit worried about it, actually... previously they'd answered within the hour... now nothing for nearly two days. i hope no-one else has booked it out in the meantime.

and yes i agree re stooart.

Hi Aitch, I'm back.
I've naively assumed that as someone mentioned half term you were going the week before me, didn't read your OP properly. Clearly our dates cross but I would never try and gazump you. If someone has put in a higher offer, it's not me!

good-oh, it's just that they offer a rate based on how many people are sharing and you are four and we are three soo... fingers crossed they get back to me today.

I got to the 'can't be arsed with all this, let's just stay at home' phase this morning!
There just seems to so much choice but mostly one bed or studios.
I had been wanting a 2 bed appartment.

may be worth either putting a post on the forum of this site or having a look at some of the contacts in the tourism section of the business directory on same site? Another good local source of accomodation or adverts for accomodation agencies is www.wantedinrome.com
Obviously only if where you are trying for doesn't work out and hopefully it will. It's a bank holiday weekend here this weekend (fri to sun) so loads of people go out of the city for the weekend so may just be cos of that you cant reach anyone? Everyones back to work on Mon.

Hello Aitch - been offline for couple of days as we have friends visiting from the UK with their 16month old...glorious weather here and the little boy has been zooming around having wonderful time, gazing at all the Vespas (his favourite thing in the world) and having waiters/carabinieri/nonnas/priests/us fawn all over him. Offer of the Quinny still stands, assuming blardy blardy British Airways find the wheels for our Cameleon by then. Would you believe they lost five of our bags going through T5 27 days ago???????? We just got the baby's bed and the top half of the pram back two days ago. They still can't find the wheels and she hated the cheapo forward-facing umbrella stroller we were forced to get as a stopgap. Having experienced her howling all the way around Rome, we leant hard on BA to at least cover a Quinny.

And we have a lovely travel cot if your Brussels-based Eurotart friends can't come up with one.

Agree with Gio71about it

..sorry, last message truncated as was supposed to be cooking supper instead of MN-ing and heard dh footsteps coming downstairs fi-fi-fo-fum with uncooked pasta.

was going to say that, yes, Gio right to say Rome very quiet this weekend as many people away for Liberation Day holiday. I mean, Trastevere was heaving as ever when we passed thru there yesterday (and indeed came away on the No8 tram to Argentina - are you feeling nostalgic??)

I think your babe will just enjoy all the different sights, smells, tastes, sunshine, trams, buses, attention. And yes, avoid the Metro - no escalators at many stations and many steps. Oh, and btw the wonderful forum is no longer free to adults - 11 euros each to cover the palatine, colosseum and forum as of two weeks ago. Unless you're over 65, and from the BLW website I don't get that impression...

God, the second para of that last message made no sense either. Meant to be getting profiteroles out of fridge. It's quiet in that residents have gone away, but busy because tourist season has well and truly started, is what I meant

Come to celimontana park at the weekend - they have lovely little pond stuffed with terrapins,swings and roundabouts, and man doing shetland pony rides.

We also went to the zoo last Sat and the older children were agog, particularly when the bears plunged into their pool and started wrestling. Our 6 month old was more interested in the ivy growing on the ground. Random.

oh we are DEFFO going to the zoo. we're only going for a week... will visit pals also obv so what else is a MUST, Romane? and am i mad to think i should nip to fregene for the day? never been by public transport so if we can't persuade pals to take us, should i just forget it?

i may veeeeeery well take you up on your kind offers of quinny/cot etc tallis, that would be great. cos then we could get a shitey buggy for the airports and never think about it again if that were the case... which might be quite wonderful.

I must say I'm quite liking the Quinny. Except for high kerbs,when it wants to kind of tip sideways onto its shoulder/elbow, if you get my drift (being a three wheeler.) Ifthe Bugaboo is in one piece by end May, which even with BA incompetence it shoudl be, you're more than welcome. (sbould warn you it's in a colour officially known as Apple but which is in fact snot green. I'm getting used to it though.) Travel cot with superior mattress def on offer.

I know you're on a budget, but have you looked into renting a car just for a couple of days? If you go onto Sixt's Italian website and negotiate the lingo (I can try to help next week) you can sometimes get a little Panda for about 10 euros a day!! Earlier you book the better, bit like no-frills flights. You pick the car up from the multistorey under the Villa Borghese, so could fit it in with trip to the zoo. And then could get to lovely Fregene under your own steam. There's also a cool restaurant on the beach among the dunes just south of Ostia, it's called Mediterraneo and its vongole is famous. Its choc pud should also be famousIMHO. They love kids there. The waitresses spend more time gurning into prams than remembering orders.

the noah's ark at the zoo is cool, as are chimps, but the lion was looking bit lonely and sad i thought. as for the seal [shudder emoticon].

Here is Sixt italy site - just got quote of euros 25.99 for a Fiat Panda for two days from May 31st including collision damage waiver whatnot.

Have carseat you can borrow which fits 0-4 yrs.

i'd love to, my first car was an old panda... ah bliss...

but i am Too Scared to drive in Rome and dh doesn't drive, the useless git.

Dammnit, that Sixt site's in German. Vorsrpung durch Technik, not. Why on earth did that happen?

No need to be scared to drive in Rome. Just drive appallingly badly and everyone else will accommodate you. It's because they will all be driving appallingly badly themselves. And the rental is soooooo cheap...

Need to go and bf. You can always get the train out to Ostia from the station just next to the Pyramid. Not far at all from Trastevere. look at the atac transport site - tells you how to get anywhere in Rome from anywhere else if you put in street name andnumber. More links tomorrow. Arrivederci - hope you hear from the apartment people!

i have JUST PUT DOWN THE DEPOSIT. HooZAH!

you are being awfully kind, tallis, i do appreciate it. how old is your baby/child/lot?

a domani!

Yey-ey-ey-ey-ey.

She is six and a half months. I've just started to give her solids [mini thread hijack alert] - wanted to BLW but am terrified of lumps/choking. She came a cropper on a small lump of banana and spluttered until her eyebrows went bright pink and tears sprang from eyes etc etc. Have submitted to the yoke of Karmel . Still planning to give carrot batons/broccoli spears however.

(jumps on mini thread)have you not started on brodo tallis??? Brodo was bain of my life with ds, bloody pediatrica insisting that I spend half my life preparing it. Never understood it either-what consistency should be etc- did she mean a thick soup with crema di tapioca added or a thin broth like minestra?? Spent period from 6-9 months thinking and talking and analysing brodo 80% of the time and feeling guilty whenever I cheated and gave puree veg
Glad you got booked aitch. Train tallis said about to Ostia is really easy, you use the normal bus / metro tickets, leaves every 15 mins and takes 35 mins to Ostia lido centro. If you want to go further out of Ostia you can get really regular buses outside the station which go to the cancelli (is that area where restaurant is Tallis-sounds nice by the way? ). Or if is a bit of a trek then there are a couple of nice places in the centre of Ostia by the sea-Lido (got terrace bit where you can look at the sea) or Elmi (pretty cheap, huge fish restaurant-bit busy and functional looking but always packed with Italians so good sign.
Or have you thought about going further afield and getting train down to lovely Sperlonga for the day-bit of a hassle but soooooo nice (sighs wistfully and remembers blissful long days before ds reading in peace on Sperlonga beach)

Wahay!!
Delighted to hear you've got something booked, haven't managed that myself yet.
I'm waiting to hear back on a couple of places in Trastevere from the rentalsinrome site. Wish me luck!
Where did you end up?

thing is, Tallis, she'll probably never do that again now that she's learned she didn't like it. imo and ime if you fancy BLW but get a bit sidetracked by a really bad gag (to be fair, it does sound like that wasn't fun) you'll be on finger food and off mush in a few weeks anyway... if the baby likes finger food and you let them near it they don't give you much choice in the matter after a while.

i'll send you my other addresses in a mo, unfit. if it was rovere or sant'agata for rentalinrome then they are unavailable for that week.

Hi Gio71 [continuing thread hijack but with bits of Rome info added in so not really...] - Don't get me started with the brodo. I'd avoided the paed here since she kept banging on wanting me to havetotally unnecessary and v expensive hip ultrasound for dd. Who had no hip probs at all. But a couple of weeks ago we endured 10 days in Bambino Gesu with nasty UTI and the Dr there was AGHAST that dd hadn't been on solids since, oh, three months. I agreed to a bit of brodo since she was by then six months and I'd been meaning to start except that she got ill. And then the doctor asked the nurse what was on the lunch menu. "Lamb and rabbit" she says. "Bellissimo" says the doctor, ordering it up on her notes with a flourish. Can you imagine going from excl bf to lamb and rabbit in one fell swoop????? I did put my foot down.

The Mediterraneo restaurant is just south of Ostia on that coast road,by the 7km signpost. Has great atmosphere, fab for people-watching and chaps in very skimpy Speedoes. The weird thing, as only in Italy, is that there are beautiful protected dunes a little way down the beach, which are fave place of, er, gay cruisers. Literally standing there, about 100 yards away, with their bottoms out in plain daylight hoping to pick someone up. But the world of the beach merrily carries on around them, bar the occasional four-year-old pointing and saying, "Look mummy what is that man doing?" etc. Anyway, don't let it put you off. DOesn't put off anyone else. Can find phone number if you'd like to go!

Aitch, we went to the Villa Borghese y'day and had gorgeous picnic. Fingers crossed this beautiful weather carries on for you - not too hot (ok in jeans and T-shirt, bare foot in sandals) and a nice breeze. Many rides were had on the children's roundabout, ice creams eaten, lemon sodas quaffed. Heaven.

would love phone number of restaurant tallis, why don't you come and visit us on little italy site so I don't continue hijacking thread? Remember going to that part of Ostia beach many moons ago when my little sister was still a kid and she found the whole gay men cruisers the most fabulous thing she'd ever seen and sent postcards to all her 11 year old friends describing in detail what her cool older sister had taken her to see . Also went to villa borghese yesterday-did you go to the food festival thingy? I stuffed myself with free food and spent a fortune on goodies
lol at bf to rabbit in 1 go!

Little Italy thread? There's a little Italy thread? Will seek it out. With the restaurant phone number. Damn - missed the free food and my mates from London would have loved it as they're real deli-creepers. Where was that then? Last weekend in Villa B they had hundreds of women in pink legwarmers doing serial aerobics - did you see that! really scary.

Sorry, Aitch - hijack officially over.