Slow Europe

Plough Cottage near Painswick, May 2000

If you are curious to see the types of vacation rentals available in Italy, Switzerland and England, have a look at the places we have stayed in over the past ten years.

• Vacation Rentals in Italy
• Vacation Rentals in Switzerland
• Vacation Rentals in England

These are the places we have stayed since I got my first digital camera - from 1999 to the present. They give you a good idea of the types and quality of vacation rentals available in these countries.

Send me your links

If you have some great Europe travel photos or know of websites or Flickr accounts with great photos, send me the link and I will add it to the resources on my main photo page. Contact Pauline.

Third time lucky!

First I set up PhotoPost to display my photos on Slow Europe because I was used to it from SlowTrav. But I don’t like how it works and it was overkill for what I needed, so I looked for a better solution.

I found Gallery2 which is great software with easy to change templates. I uploaded my photos again. But it never clicked for me and was once again overkill for what I needed.

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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 - Practical Traveler has another article about vacation rentals, this one in response to their earlier article “Skirting the Pitfalls of Private Rentals (read my blog about this). This followup article includes some of the comments from the earlier article, including my comment about SlowTrav.com being a great place to read vacation rentals reviews. It also quotes some good and bad experiences with vacation rentals, including one very bad experience renting a Paris apartment from an agency. There are some good tips for finding good rentals.

“Several readers recommended Web sites where travelers can find reviews of vacation rentals, like www.vacationrentalscommunity.com and www.slowtrav.com.” New York Times, Practical Traveler, Readers Sound Off on Private Rentals, by Michelle Higgins, Nov 2, 2008

SlowTrav.com is the website and community that I started eight years ago, but sold last year. Maybe, a few years from now, this new site Slow Europe (when it launches in a few weeks) will be mentioned in the New York Times! :)

Dear Vacation Rental Agency or Vacation Rental Owner,

You put up a website full of information about your rentals and how to book them. Maybe you have given us pages of information about your area and the fun things we can do there. You may have told us the history of your farm and the buildings. But, you probably have not told us anything about you and the people who run your vacation rentals or agency.

Please, tell us who you are! I don’t want to book with an agency that does not list the names of the owners and staff on their site. Who are you? Who am I dealing with? I don’t want to stay on a farm and not have any idea of who runs the farm and lives there. Who are you? When I get there, who will be there?

And if you could include on your website a list of your prices and an availability calendar, so that I don’t have to email and ask, that would be excellent! We all have travel budgets and I don’t want to guess whether or not not your place falls into my budget.

Sincerely,
Pauline Kenny
A traveler who likes to stay in vacation rentals in Europe

I could do a 30 minute rant right now about vacation rental websites. Over the last two months I have looked at hundreds of websites for vacation rentals in Europe (I am working on Italy now) and I have seen it all. Splash-Flash pages that waste my time. Headers that keep moving and make me dizzy. Sites with lots of information about the rentals and the area, sites with a few lines of description and small out-of-focus photos. Sites that work well, sites with many broken links. Sites that are so interesting and entertaining that I read everything, sites that look like they have not been updated in a decade.

But my biggest pet peeve is that hardly any websites, for agencies or for farms, tell you much about the owners and staff. Most sites do not even give you the name of the owner! Why is this a secret? Why don’t they want us to know who they are? (I tell you who I am on Slow Europe.)

Here are three websites that tell you who they are! I would like to see information like this on all the vacation rental websites. 

Castello di Montalto

www.montalto.it - Family owned historic castle and hamlet on the eastern edge of Chianti, east of Siena near Castelnuovo Berardenga, with ten apartments/houses (sleeps 2 - 6).

The Castle Montalto website tells you about the castle and their vacation rentals. Click About Us and you see a photo of the owners and can read about them.

Giovanni is Italian, Diana is American; we both speak fluent Italian and English and fairly fluent French, some German and a very little Spanish. We live here all year round, with more space than we need – space that we are happy to share with our guests.

Click Whom You Will Meet on Your Arrival to see a photo of the person who ”you will meet on your arrival” and to learn the names of the people who work on the estate. They even tell you about the estate pets (although I am a little dismayed that they tell us the name of the dog, but not the names of the two cats).

Italian Journeys

www.montalcino-tuscany.com - Vacation rentals in and near Montalcino.

When you book with this small agency you know who you are booking with. Click About Us to learn about Isabella and Luigi Dusi. They have more detailed pages with information about each of them.

Luigi, born in San Remo, Italia, returned to his homeland in 1994. Although away from Italy for many years he settled into the rhythmic life of medieval Montalcino and set about building a new life, leaving behind a frenetic business world – and bringing Isabella to live in Tuscany.

Isabella has written two books about their life in Montalcino.

In Tuscany

www.intuscany.net - Agency in Castelmuzio, near Pienza. Good selection of villas, houses and apartments in Tuscany (some are agriturismo or farms/estates) from budget to luxury.

When I email or phone In Tuscany, I know who I will be talking to. Click The Team to meet the staff.

Here are a few of the people who will most likely be helping you arrange your perfect holiday. In the world of impersonal cyberspace, we feel that a face can go a long way towards building trust and personal rapport in our dealings.

This is an agency that is located in the area where they have their rentals, so they are on hand if you have questions or problems.

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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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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