An Affordable Apartment in Rome

My first idea was to exchange apartments: my two-bedroom L.A. place (close to museums and public transport) for something in the heart of Rome. Turns out, it isn’t as easy as the exchange companies make it sound. I signed up with one of the larger home-swap firms, contacted 12 listers from its catalog, and only one bothered to write me back--to say “no.” That was $65 (the listing fee) down the drain.

So now I’d have to pay for lodging, and it would have to be cheap. As I pondered whether to book a cheap hotel room or rent a cheap apartment, I explored both ideas.

I called an apartment rental place in San Francisco, and got its brochure. They had a couple of places for about $1,000 a week (which, I discovered, is bottom-of-the-line at most rental outfits)--about $140 a night. Then I went through the guidebooks and made a short list of charming-but-cheap small hotels and pensiones where a double with bath would be $100 or less. I waited until after midnight--it would then be 9 a.m. in Rome--and called. My first choice, and the cheapest (listed as $80 in the guidebook) was Albergo Campo de’ Fioria. The woman who answered spoke fine English and quoted me 180,000 lire--about $120. This was the cheapest on my list. It was at that moment that the scales tipped in favor of the apartment--probably cheaper in the long run since we could eat in.

I began researching apartments in earnest. I called agencies and requested brochures. I put a message on America Online: “Will be in Rome for two weeks mid-July. Looking for a cheap but charming apartment for two. Any ideas?”

I called an agency mentioned in a guidebook. Suzanne Pidduck in Camarillo is the U.S. representative for Cuendet properties, a European company. She had a one-bedroom on Via Giulia for $809 a week, and she faxed me a photo and information, then put the brochure with a decent color photo in the mail. This looked like a great apartment. Nicely furnished. I could see a window that opened onto a promisingly antique wall. I found the street on the map--it seemed like a great location in the heart of the Campo dei Fiori neighborhood. (When we got to Rome, I took a stroll down Via Giulia--it is one of the nicest in the city.) The price was great--it turned out to be the cheapest I’d find. The only hitch: Rentals with Cuendet are strictly Saturday to Saturday and we were traveling Monday to Monday.

I braved the Internet. A friend had said how easily she had found a London apartment on it. I found Homebase Abroad and they sent me an E-mail message with detailed descriptions of three Rome apartments in my price range. When I called Mara Solomon, the director, she told me more about the apartments and faxed me details on several others. She’d been to all of them: “We only rent what we’ve seen.”

A one bedroom in the Trastevere (pronounced tras TE ve re) section, was the cheapest at $900 a week but two others weren’t much more, so I felt I had three to choose from. I could tell she wasn’t sure that the Trastevere apartment was for me. It was “young.” She didn’t seem gung-ho on the neighborhood--a nice place for dinner but not to stay in. But I had been doing a lot of reading on Rome and Trastevere sounded like just my kind of place--the feeling of an Italian village in the middle of Rome--bohemian but safe.

I decided to trust my instincts. We (I and my 17-year-old son Alex) booked the apartment in Trastevere.

I sent Mara $1,800 plus $500 security deposit. She mailed back booking conditions (bottom line: too late for refunds), “our” address and phone number in Rome and that of her Italian representative.

*

Day 1: We arrive at Rome’s Termini railway station and call the rep, Abigail Leese, as directed. We are 45 minutes early. She asks us to kill a little time because the owner wants to be there to greet us at 4 p.m. I worry that Alex’s too, too baggy, unhemmed L.A. style will throw her. I tell him to smile a lot and stand behind me. We are amazed that the cab driver finds the apartment with no trouble. Vicolo del Bologna is in the midst of a warren of narrow one-way streets that we are not sure we will ever figure out.

Abby calls down, “Ms. Melinkoff, is that you?” from “our” window. She buzzes us in. We climb three flights of marble stairs. First impression: Better than the photo. Airy. High, high ceilings.

The owner, Giulia (owner’s names often are not divulged), is not there, but her mother is. Abby translates. She explains the door locks and advises us not to open the bedroom windows because they will blow everything shut. She shows us the extra linens. Abby explains the washing machine--cautioning us that Italian washers take about two hours to do a load.

When we are alone, we collapse and look around. We quickly figure out how to prop open the bedroom window to get the cross breeze. With all the windows open, the apartment remains a cool refuge in an otherwise beastly hot city. Giulia has cleared out plenty of space for us: most of a big armoire in the living room, the entire clothes closet and small dresser in the bedroom. But her presence remains and we like it. Family pictures--snapshots of her trip to the United States, family ski trips, glamour shots of her parents in the 1950s.

She has cutesy taste (the frog-shaped toilet paper holder), but several serious antiques (the armoire, a huge chest and small dining table) counteract the fluff. The tall windows with elegant drapes are divine. Giulia, or her mom, has left an arrangement of yellow and purple flowers. A nice welcome. We check out our view: other apartment buildings--pretty shutters--and their roof gardens and, down below, cars wedged into a tiny triangle of parking space.

I notice that Giulia left only one roll of paper towels and toilet paper. We will need to find a store. Uh oh! I wanted to stay in an apartment so that I would live the daily life of a Roman--which means errands such as this--but now finding household supplies with my 30 words of Italian seems daunting. We were on our own. No concierge. No fellow diners at the breakfast table to trade tourist tips with.

Alex rushes off (major understatement) to meet his girlfriend, who is visiting Rome with her family. I explore the neighborhood on my own. Finding only one small shop with little to tempt me, I buy a half loaf of bread (no one buys bread at 6 p.m.!), butter, cheese and cookies. A start.

Day 2: I walk (map in hand) six tricky blocks to the street market at Piazza San Cosimato. Mostly produce. I do not plan to cook in the apartment, just breakfasts and snacks. Not knowing how to buy by the kilo when I don’t want a whole kilo’s worth, I manage to snare three bananas (“Tre, per favore”). At a nearby bakery I point at the pastries and say “due” and “quatro.”

After a hot morning of sightseeing, it feels great to collapse at home. We have brought our own tapes knowing there’ll be CD and tape players. Alex plays reggae; I pop in Italian arias. (By Day 3, Alex is whistling “La Donna e Mobile.”)

At 6, we push ourselves out the door again to explore. I go to a cafe. Alex walks two blocks to the bank of the Tiber and writes in his journal. We meet for dinner. This becomes a daily routine, and it keeps us from feeling trapped with each other. Mostly we eat dinner in Trastevere where the choice of restaurants seems never-ending.

Day 3: I find a better market--it becomes my market for the two weeks. Marinated eggplant. Great cheese, including a ripe ricotta that is addictive. I make the first of many daily stops at the local tabacchi. These tiny, family-run shops sell cigarettes, stamps and sundries.

Most evenings, I am drawn to the piazza, where I become too transfixed by life around me to do much writing or reading. Teens arrive on motorini and claim the steps of the fountain. Kids play soccer in front of the church. Workers cut across the square on the way home. Tour groups. Dog walkers. These Romans are dog-happy.

Day 4: I can walk the several blocks to my market and back without a map! Slowly I divest myself of the dead giveaway trappings of the tourist: sturdy, white sneakers . . . bandoliered purse . . . camera . . . guidebook.

At the morning street market, I buy tomatoes--juicy red ones. More bananas. Ten yellow gerber daisies at 65 cents each. Cornetti (croissants) at the bakery. Bread in another market. A newspaper. Very local. We eat breakfast, then set out for the Villa Farnesina and the Botanic Garden, which are a few short blocks from our apartment.

Wandering after dinner, we discover that what we are convinced is the best gelateria in Rome, Doppia Coppia, is at the end of our block. Not all gelato shops are great--the great ones make their own. The others buy wholesale. And the guy on the night shift is a sweetie, adding big dollops of cream at no extra charge.

Day 6: We try to figure out the washer. Surely we are following Abby’s instructions. It won’t start. The cleaning woman comes and assesses the machine. She jiggles a knob and voila! Two and a half hours later our wash is done. I cart it to the line strung outside the bedroom window and feel so Trasteverini. I haven’t hung laundry like this since I visited my aunt in Queens as a kid. Simple pleasures.

Day 8: As I go to sleep, sounds that would drive me nuts at home, I find soothing: a party next door, someone in a nearby restaurant washing dishes until 2 a.m. But, despite the close quarters, I never hear loud stereos.

Day 10: We have seen most of Rome’s impressive sites. We try to get to them before they open to cut down on the crowds. A fermata (bus stop) is two blocks from our apartment or we cross over the Tiber at Ponte Sisto pedestrian bridge into the historic center. Alex has his own map and strikes out easily on his own.

Dinner at Da Lucia is a classic Trastevere experience. The restaurant, like many others, magically “appears” at 8 at night. A metal door goes up and the family starts cooking and setting up folding tables and chairs in the street. Laundry hangs overhead. Cats and a piccolo player entertain. They serve great gnocchi on Thursdays.

Day 11: Abby has agreed to show me some of the other Homebase Abroad properties. She takes me to one, on Via Frattina, two blocks from the tony Via Condotti. Great street. An elevator! Sleeping space for six for $1,700: I see backpacks tucked in corners. I love the kitchen. But it’s not my kind of place: While the leaded glass doors are charming, it’s been furnished rather slapdash. Obviously a rental.

We cross town to the Aventino district. Here a photographer and his artist wife have subdivided their lushly landscaped villa, renting out one of the newly created apartments (three stories, two bedrooms, $1,300). The terrace is a wowser with its own incredible view across the Circus Maximus to the Palatine Hill.

Abby fills me in on the vacation rental scene in Italy. It seems that Italians are beginning to see the advantages of short-term rentals to foreigners. Italian laws, she says, are so skewed in favor of tenants that landlords often wind up with squatters for years. Two-week tenants, with plane tickets home, are now very desirable.

Day 15: Up early, we put everything back where Giulia likes it. Abby comes at 7 a.m. to read the meters: We owe 8,000 lire ($5.50) for local phone calls. Very reluctantly (major understatement), we hand over the keys. Arrivederci, Trastevere.

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GUIDEBOOK: Rental Rome

Getting there: From LAX to Rome there is direct service (one stop en route, no plane change) on Alitalia, TWA and USAir. Connecting service on Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, Swissair and Delta. Fares on KLM are about $500, including tax, until March 3. All other fares begin at about $600.

Rental agencies: Among those I contacted: Homebase Abroad, Ltd., 29 Mary’s Lane, Scituate, MA 02066; telephone (617) 545-5112, fax (617) 545-1808, Internet address https://www.homebase-abroad.com.

Cuendet Rentals in Italy, 1742 Calle Corva, Camarillo, CA 93010; tel. (800) 726-6702, fax (805) 482-7976, Internet address: https://www.rentvillas.com.

For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025; tel. (310) 820-0098.