The Best B&Bs in Florence

How to find, and reserve, the best bed and breakfasts in Florence in every price range and neighborhood

www.bedandbreakfast.com
www.venere.com
www.booking.com
www.hotelsCombined.com

ReidsItaly.com Florence Map

» View ENLARGED MAP with all listings

Florence Travel Guidebooks

B&Bs in Florence

More on how B&Bs work in Italy: info, tips, and advice
• Introduction
• What to expectThe B&B concept—a handful of rooms run as an inn by a family in their own home—has recently spread throughout Italy and there are now more B&Bs in Florence (around 470) than there are hotels (around 376).

A Florentine bed and breakfast essentially works something like a small hotel that provides breakfast and is located in the owner's home (or at least an a converted apartment in their building). The size is limited to no more than 3–4 rooms or 6–8 beds total.

This usually means a cozy, welcoming, friendly place with a bit more interaction with your hosts than at a hotel—and B&Bs are usually anywhere from 5% to 40% cheaper than hotels.

Expect to pay anywhere from €35 to €140 for a double room at a typical B&B.

Note that there's a thin line (often just which set of local standards, requirements, and legal complications the owner wants to deal with) between what's called a B&B and what's called an affittacamere (rental rooms).

Finding the perfect Italian B&B

The Florence tourist office provides a complete list of all bed and breakfast outfits in town, but it's simply that: a list of all the B&Bs in alphabetical order and arbitrarily divided between 358 "Rental room-B&B" properties (mostly slightly larger true B&Bs) and 113 "Non-professional rental room-B&B" places (largely one– or two-room affittacamere, or rental room outfits).

The info on each provided is pretty basic: name, address, telephone, website, number of rooms, basic amenities, sometimes the price and occasionally a photograph. That's it. A great resource, but one that requires a lot of legwork to use, since you have to click on each entry individually to find out more.

If you want more intel to go on, try using a private booking site that will provide descriptions, user reviews, photographs, and more information to help you make a choice.

Best sites for booking B&Bs in Italy

note
I've inserted the BedandBreakfast.com results for Florence in a frame below, but you may want to open it in a separate window instead, to make things like using your browser's "Back" button easier; if you stay on this page, right click to get a browser functions menu for "back" and such. BedandBreakfast.com (www.bedandbreakfast.com) - Massive site and database with thousands of choices all across Italy, including around 80 in Florence.
Venere.com (www.venere.com)- Generalist booking site based in Italy with a huge representation of B&Bs (in addition to hotels, apartments, and other options).
Booking.com (www.booking.com) - Another general booking site, and one of the few that includes B&BS (under the category "Guest Accommodations").
Bed-and-Breakfast.it (www.bed-and-breakfast.it) - Probably the biggest and best of the huge, national services, with more than 10,000 B&Bs across Italy.
Bed & Breakfast Italia (www.bbitalia.it) - Another major nationwide service, with more than 1,000 members and three quality categories where prices range from €44 to €116 ($52 to $137).
Generalist booking sites - The following sites have limited listings in Italy (from a few dozen to a few hundred total), but you never know where you'll find the perfect place, so feel free to sift through the offerings: www.innsite.com, www.karenbrown.com, www.lanierbb.com, www.bbonline.com, www.ibbp.com, www.1bbweb.com.
Airbnb.com (www.airbnb.com) - Bit of an odd, new entry out there with about a dozen entries in Florence (if you search "'Florence" it returns a lot more results than that, but look carefully and you'll see that most of them are actually in other Tuscan towns—like Lucca or Pisa—and some are as far away as Bologna). Not so much a B&B as a network of unofficial (and, one imagines, unregistered with the local authorities) places to stay where the owners will be happy to inflate the old air mattress for you. (That's really just a metaphor; usually, guest bedrooms, futons, or fold-out couches are involved). It's kind of like couchsurfing (only you pay—whatever they want to charge, which can be anywhere from $25 to $250 per night but is usually a great deal), or a hospitality network (only there are no membership fees, and you don't have to be a host yourself; plus, you do have to pay).

ShareThis

Search ReidsItaly.com

This material was last updated January 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

about | contact | faq

» THE REIDSITALY.COM DIFFERENCE «

Copyright © 2008–2011 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.

The Best B&Bs in Florence

How to find, and reserve, the best bed and breakfasts in Florence in every price range and neighborhood

Finding the perfect Italian B&B

Best sites for booking B&Bs in Italy

Related pages