Cheap Hotels in Florence, Italy?

Hey, a fellow grad student going to CHI! My housing situation is already figured out (a bunch of students from our school are sharing an apartment), but hopefully I can offer you some leads. I pretty much never even look at the conference-recommended hotel list for these things as they are always super expensive. I found my accommodations here: http://www.cross-pollinate.com I highly recommend the cross-pollinate site for scoping out possible accommodations, though I eventually found the home page for the guest house I was interested in and contacted them directly. You might also have some luck browsing TripAdvisor under http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g187895-c2-Florence_Tuscany-Hotels.html or http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g187895-c3-Florence_Tuscany-Hotels.html for guesthouses, hostels, and apartments.

Thivaia, we both know that that breakfast suuuucked. But, Alterscape, I too recommended the Soggiorno Battistero. Very basic place, but cheap and well located.

Wow, that dollar sure has plummetted, hasn't it. So I guess everything's expensive. Anyway, I stayed at http://www.accademiahotel.net/en/rooms.htm on a Rick Steves tour last year. It's right there in the historic center, which is http://maps.google.com/maps?daddr=Piazza+Adua,+1%2Fd,+50123+Florence+FI,+Italy&geocode=&dirflg=&saddr=via+faenza+7+firenze+italy&f=d&sll=43.781412,11.250129&sspn=0.011929,0.029182&ie=UTF8&ll=43.776703,11.251974&spn=0.005965,0.014591&t=h&z=16 to your convention site. Looks like it's 50 euros for a single, depending on season. That sounds pretty good compared to the prices listed on your conference site. The hotel was just fine, little brioche/yogurt/cheese n' lunchmeat (yeah!)/cereal/juice/coffee breakfast included and a computer for guest use (gotta buy an internet card). Good enough for Rick, good enough for you. If your room overlooks the back alley, though, see if you can move. The ubiquitous scooters and early morning alley commerce noises really magnify in that echo chamber. Housekeeping note: we resolved that that other thing in the bathroom must in fact have been a bidet and not some kind of foot-sink or something. Why it had a drain stopper, though, was a real puzzler. Why would you want to hang on to butt rinse water? And the angle on that little nozzle is not very asshole friendly, I'll tell you. But I suppose you have to get your squat on and give it a shot at least once. When in Rome and all. Don't burn yourself.

When I was in Italy last, I booked rooms through http://en.venere.com/hotels_florence/#o=price&r=0&m=0&f=C000100000000000&sb=1. It's a good site, I really do recommend it.

ditto Venere. we stayed at Hotel Bologna; very nice for the price.

If you do get stuck, I stayed at http://www.ostello.it/inglese/gbr.html, which offered fairly sturdy looking personal lockers (byo padlock) in the dorms as well as the (free) option of leaving things in the safe deposit box in reception. Pretty minimal facilites, but at €17/night it suited me.

Thirding Venere.com; it's never let me down booking accommodation in Italy.

Hotel Villa D'Annunzio http://www.polihotels.com/hotel-dannunzio_en.php Cheap, peaceful (ex-monastery), 10-15 minutes bus ride from the centre. Small pool in the garden. I liked it.

http://www.bedbreakfastalighieri.it/ [email protected] a reasonable bed and breakfast, in the center of town, at a walking distance from the train station. Clean, and located in a tower.