Slow Europe

Lisa and Pat Byrne of Italy Perfect

The Byrne family knows Europe and they know vacation rentals. Lisa and Pat Byrne run the vacation rental agency Italy Perfect. Their sister Madelyn Williams and her husband Philippe run two vacation rental agencies - Paris Perfect and London Perfect, living in London and commuting to Paris several times a month. A fourth sister lives in Paris and manages the Paris Perfect apartments. That is four sisters running vacation rental agencies for Europe.

Two more Byrne sisters live in Arizona and have so far stayed away from opening vacation rental agencies.

Pat also runs Kids Europe, information for traveling in Europe with children.

Prior to starting Italy Perfect, Lisa and Pat both had successful careers in the high tech marketing world, juggling work, motherhood and community involvement. Lisa lives in San Francisco with her husband and two teenagers. Pat lives outside of Boston with her husband and has college aged sons.

Italy Perfect offers vacation rentals in Rome, Florence, Venice and Sorrento (Amalfi Coast), plus countryside rentals in Tuscany. For each property the website has a detailed description, photos, prices, availability calendar, guest reviews, location map and weather information. Many properties have extra photos showing the neighborhood and nearby shops.

A Conversation with Lisa and Pat Byrne of Italy Perfect

Pauline: How did four sisters all end up running vacation rental agencies?

Lisa & Pat: The vacation rental business is a second career for all of us. Madelyn, a former banker and the most entrepreneurial of the family, started Paris Perfect vacation rentals in the late 1990’s with a single apartment and now has over forty Paris vacation rentals. She inspired Lisa, who was a public relations consultant, to start Italy Perfect. Lisa then talked her sister Pat, who was a high tech marketing executive, to join in the business. Pat and Lisa both have MBAs from The American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) in Phoenix. Madelyn is a Stanford Business School graduate.

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The Sunday New York Times has an article about staying in Convents in Europe.

New York Times, Monastic Doors Open for Travelers, by Jane Margolies, Oct 19, 2008

This detailed article lists great resources for finding and booking this less expensive type of European accommodation. The writer mentions an article that I wrote with Kathy Wood for SlowTrav  - You CAN Afford Europe This Year - where we give our favorite tips for doing less expensive European vacations (with a lot of input from the Slow Travel community).

I have never stayed in a convent (I spent enough time with nuns in my Catholic high school) but I have stayed in many budget hotels in Europe. Budget hotels in the US usually means a less expensive hotel chain, like Motel 6 or Super 8, although you can find very nice locally owned budget hotels or cabins when you get off the interstate. In Europe budget hotels are in the city center and in historic buildings, similar to what you get with a 4-star hotel but with simpler rooms and less opulent lobbies. Not a bad way of touring Europe.

Argiano near Siena, Tuscany

Even better, IMO, are vacation rentals. The best deals for European accommodation are vacation rentals on farms in the countryside - Agriturismo in Italy, Gites in France, Farm Stays in England. Pictured here is an apartment we rented (on the left) on Argiano, a wine estate north of Siena. The apartments were small and simply furnished, but not expensive (under $700/week) and very comfortable. We were in the heart of Chianti, only 15 minutes from Siena. We spent two weeks there and had an excellent vacation exploring the Chianti towns and villages, doing frequent visits to Siena, or taking it easy around the pool. There are hundreds of these types of farms/estates all over Italy.

In the last few weeks I have been heads down looking for local agencies and farms in Tuscany to pick out the best ones to be listed on Slow Europe. We will be launching the website in November. If you have a favorite agency or farms with apartments or cottages anywhere in Europe, please email me and tell me about it.

Sure there are some bad vacation rentals out there, but most of them are good and staying in vacation rentals is a great way to travel - less expensive than most other options and more interesting (IMO).

The New York Times published an article last weekend about one person’s very bad experience with a vacation rental that they rented directly from the owner.

New York Times, Practical Traveler, Skirting the Pitfalls of Private Rentals, by Michelle Higgins, Oct 5, 2008

The comments on the article are interesting. (I posted my 2 cents worth.)

Tower near Sovicille, Tuscany

In my eight years of running the Slow Travel site I learned that there are some bad vacation rentals, but most of them are good. We did not receive very many bad or neutral reviews and we did not have many complaints on the forums. Some, but not many compared to the number of people posting on the forum.

Renting from an agency does not guarentee you a good vacation rental. Some agencies are good, some are looking to put “bodies in beds” and don’t care about matching your requirements with their properties. Renting directly from an owner does not guarentee a good experience either, but most owners want to offer good vacation rentals. Read reviews, talk to other travelers on travel forums, ask questions, read the descriptions carefully and look at the photos. Doing this gives you a much better chance of finding a great vacation rental that suits your needs.

I think that vacation rentals in Europe are generally better quality and less expensive than in the US because they have been doing this for longer and have more experience with what travelers want. Many rentals are on family-run farms or estates where the owners are nearby and care about their rentals. These are usually very well priced.

People who complain about vacation rentals sometimes ignore that fact that there are bad hotels too. How many times have you thought you found a good budget hotel in Europe only to check in and find the room is a few inches larger than the bed? Well a vacation rental at a similar per night price is bound to have a few “oddities” too.

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The September issue of the Dream of Italy newsletter is all about Villa Rentals and is the first media mention for Slow Europe :) The June 2003 issue of Dream of Italy was their first Special Report on Villa Rentals and it mentioned the site I was running then - Slow Travel. It was the second media mention we had and many more followed. So, this is a good beginning for my new Slow Europe site.

I worked with Kathy McCabe (editor and publisher of Dream of Italy) and Valerie Schneider (Panorama Italy - tours in Le Marche) on the issue. The main article is about my experience with Slow Travel - both this way of travel (staying in villa rentals) and running the Slow Travel website: how I became a Slow Traveler, creating the Slow Travel website and community, renting from agencies vs. owners, changes in vacation rental agencies in the past decade.

Another article is “How to Find a Good Villa Rental Agency” - what we look for in a good agency. We wrote about terms used to talk about vacation rentals - villa rentals, holiday cottages, agriturism, etc. - “you say tomato, I say tomahto”.

Kathy added some great tips for first-time renters. We put our heads together and came up with a three page list of recommended villa rentals for Italy, by region (agencies and estates with cottages).

Subscribe to Dream of Italy or purchase this issue for $10.

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My good friend Ann Reavis has started a blog about Italy: Tuscan Traveler - Burnt to a Crisp Under the Tuscan Sun.

Ann has been back and forth between the US and Florence for the last decade, so has a lot of great information about Florence, Tuscany and the rest of Italy. She has several interesting articles posted on the blog now.

I helped her set up her blog (which is why it looks a lot like mine except for different colors :) ). I met Ann through Slow Travel but she is originally from the Santa Fe area! Ann wrote several great articles about Florence and Tuscany for Slow Travel - Tuscan Traveler’s Tales.

Another great Italy blog to follow! You can sign up for a Feedburner email notification on her blog (see the subscribe box in the blog’s sidebar). This is a great way to be informed about new posts on your favorite blogs. (I have one too.)

Some of my favorite blogs are the ones that I have been reading for years. Two of them have updated their looks in the fast few weeks.

Art and Barb Live in Italy

Barb from the Slow Travel and Expats in Italy communities moved her blog to her own domain name: Art and Barb Live in Italy.

Barb has been running this blog since she and Art moved from Kentucky to Umbria in 2003. For the first few years she ran it on SlowTrav.com, then moved it to ExpatsInItaly.com, and now it is on her own domain. I helped her with the move and had fun customizing the Blogger template and adding her signature sunflowers to the header.

I see that Barb has linked to a recent Saturday Night Live video. We laughed until we cried when we watched that on the weekend.

Poptarticus

Shannon from the Slow Travel community runs the wonderful Poptarticus blog - music, wine and travel. I helped Shannon move from Movable Type to the WordPress software (okay, I forced her to make the move because I like the templates on WordPress better) and updated her template a bit (still same purple and lime green colors).

Dream of Italy - Villa Rentals Issue

I have been writing articles about villa rentals for Kathy McCabe’s Dream of Italy September newsletter. The newsletter will be out this week and I will post again with more information.

This will be the first media announcement of the Slow Europe website! Too bad we are not ready with the website yet - but we should be by mid-October. We are working away creating lists of our favorite agencies and resources for vacation rentals in Europe.

2 Baci in a Pinon Tree

Valerie has been running her blog 2 Baci in a Pinon Tree since 2005 when she and Bryan first starting planning the move from New Mexico to Ascoli Piceno (Marche, Italy). Valerie helped me with the Dream of Italy articles, editing, removing the parts that I over-write, and adding the parts I missed. Thanks Valerie!

Back to Work on My Own Stuff

So, this explains why I have not been writing for my blog - I have been working on other people’s blogs and doing some writing. Another friend has just started in the blogging world but we are waiting until Wednesday to launch! I will post about it then.

We also went up to Boulder for a long weekend - still thinking of moving there. Each time we visit, we fall more in love with the town.

This month for the “Vacation Like a European” series, I have written about Summer in Italy, an agency based in Italy, run by Italians, but serving mostly English-speaking clients. Most of their rentals are in southern Italy, on the popular Amalfi Coast (Sorrento, Capri, Positano, Praiano, Amalfi) and further south on the less well known and less expensive Cilento Coast - perfect destinations for a fabulous seaside vacation. They serve other popular parts of Italy as well - Rome, Lazio, Tuscany, Umbria, Lake Como, Venice.

This is small, personal agency, who care about their clients and provide a range of beautiful vacation rentals from budget to luxury. I have known Luca Trotta, the General Manager, since he started the agency and I highly recommend them.

Summer in Italy (Spring, Fall and Winter too!)

Positano, Amalfi Coast

The vacation rental agency Summer in Italy is a family affair, lead by Gioconda Trotta. Gioconda and her family started in the business almost by accident, renting out their summer home on the Cilento Coast, a beautiful “off the beaten track” area south of the Amalfi coast. Their century-old summer house originally belonged to her husband’s grandfather Pietro.

There was so much demand for their vacation rental that they started to work with other family members and friends to make their summer homes available to tourists. Many of these homes were left empty for much of the year, so everyone benefited by turning them into vacation rentals: extra income for the owners and lovely places to stay for the tourists. After a few years the Trotta family decided to take the next step and become a vacation rental agency. Summer in Italy was launched in 2001.

Now they have a staff of seven (many are in the Trotta family), offices in Italy (Salerno) and Switzerland (Lugano – near Lake Como in Italy), and over 500 properties throughout Italy. Summer in Italy is a good local vacation rental company that selects vacation rental properties carefully and offers personalized service.

Luca Trotta, Gioconda’s son, is the General Manager (see my interview with him at the end of this article). He is fluent in English and even understands our “American ways” because he spent a year in the US as an exchange student, living with an American family in the Washington D.C. area. “It was an incredible experience” says Luca, “and English is just a fraction of what I learnt during that year.” Now Luca is in his mid-thirties, married with a four year old and a new baby on the way.

Luca’s wife Mara maintains the property listings on the website, writing the descriptions and checking with the owners to be sure everything is accurately represented.

Valentina, Luca’s sister, covers the phones taking rental inquiries and talking to property owners. She has visited every vacation rental they have listed. It is Valentina’s cell number that clients are given to call any time of the day or night in case of emergency.

Andrea, Valentina’s husband’s brother, is called “Crazy Horse” because he likes to work long hours and goes online in the middle of the night to answer emails. So if you get a response in the late afternoon when you know everyone in Italy is asleep, it is Andrea burning the midnight oil. Andrea publishes a weekly booklet - Things to Do on the Amalfi Coast - that is distributed at Tourist Offices and hotels in the area.

Everyone at Summer in Italy speaks English and is used to dealing with American visitors. They have clients from 77 countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe, but the majority is from English-speaking countries: Americans (30%), Brits (20%), Australians (10%), Canadians (7%) and Irish (4%).

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