What Should I Bring on My Vacation in an Italian Apartment?

You’re really looking forward to your vacation in an Italian apartment, and you’re making your packing list so that you don’t forget anything. You’re dreaming of being able to shop at the outdoor markets and finally having a kitchen so you can cook. The freedom of being able to buy your own fresh Italian ingredients and cook them in a way that you like, and serve them at your own table at your convenience is an experience not to be missed – I’m sure you agree.

But, if this is your first time embarking on the Italian apartment experience, there are a few items that you may be used to having around your apartment kitchen that you won’t find over there.

Since you have your packing list handy, check out this list of items just in case there is anything you can’t live without:

Resealable food storage bags and plastic storage containers
Plastic baggies are starting to become more widely available, but they are usually the type that require a twist-tie at the top. Plastic storage containers are still really hard to come by. If you’re wondering why food storage containers are hard to find, one reason might be that Italy is really not a “left-over” nation. If they cook dinner in a pot, they might put the pot with leftovers into the refrigerator and eat them the next day. Or, leftovers might be put into a bowl or onto a plate, covered with foil, and put into the refrigerator. You certainly won’t have leftovers from restaurants – they don’t do doggie bags over there, and you will get an odd look from your cameriere (waiter) if you ask.
So, when I go to Italy, I usually pack a few different sizes of resealable storage bags and put some of my food items in plastic containers, so I’ll have them to use in the kitchen while I’m there.

Candy and Snacks for Travelers with Allergies
After reading hundreds of labels on candy and chocolate packages in Italy and imported from Italy, I have noted a trend: almost all Italian snack foods have been manufactured in the same facility and usually on the same equipment as some of our most prevalent allergens. Nuts, in particular, seem to pop up on most labels. If you need to be vigilant about allergens such as nuts, wheat, and dairy, bringing your own snack food is the easiest way to be safe.

Spices that are Not Typically Italian
Only recently have flavors and spices from non-Italian countries started making their way onto grocery store shelves in Italy. So, if you can’t live without certain flavors from home – or if you’re planning to cook for some Italian friends while you’re there – you may need to bring a few supplies for the spice cabinet.
Chili powder is one thing I can’t find. Brown sugar, as we know it, does not exist in Italy. When I decided to make ribs for my Italian friends in my rental apartment, I had an Italian friend research the different ingredients in the dry rub for me, and I found that very few items were available there. So, I had to make the rub mix at home and bring it to Italy in bags in my suitcase. Of course, the suitcase got delayed a day back in the US (not sure if it was the storage bags full of aromatic spices or not), so carry open spices only if you really need them. Taco seasoning and guacamole mix, if you have favorites, are easy to bring over in packets.

Other items that You Can’t Find in Italy (or Don’t Taste the Same at ALL)
- Cake mixes, cookie mixes, instant pudding mixesSplenda
- Regular baking powder (you can typically find vanilla flavored baking powder, but it isn’t exactly the same)
- Vanilla extract
- Peanut butter (they have peanut butter now, but the taste will not remind you of home)

Having a kitchen at your disposal on your Italian vacation will be exciting and enjoyable. Bringing a few extra kitchen comfort items will make it even more relaxing and satisfying.
Enjoy tweaking that Italy trip packing list, and HAVE FUN!

What Websites Should I Use to Find an Apartment in Italy?

Shopping for a vacation rental apartment in Italy has never been so easy. The selection ranges from “I know a guy” websites that offer direct contact with property owners, all the way through management companies that offer reliably comfortable properties for the luxury traveler. To make the most of your time spent shopping for Italian short-term rental apartments, you really need to know your priorities.

I am an independent international traveler; comfortable interacting with people who do not speak fluent English and would like to live like the Italians: Homelidays.com.
Homelidays.com is a website that offers renters the ability to shop for various rental accommodations by location, by price range, and many other parameters. The Homelidays website has a distinctly European feel, but the descriptions and terminology they use translates easily into English. You will find that most of the reviews written about the properties on the site are from non-English speaking customers. As far as pricing and availability, this is a really good thing. The mostly European clientele keeps the prices down and keeps standards very European (meaning unique and culturally authentic). The information provided on each rental property is written by the owners, and reservations are made directly with owners through an internet message system on the Homelidays site. Don’t worry during the apartment-finding process if you don’t speak Italian – the Homelidays messaging system translates messages between languages.

However, you will need to be able to communicate once you arrive at your apartment. So, you might want to prepare a list of questions to ask through the Homelidays messaging ahead of time. You could also use a free translation website to generate a list of specific questions (such as: Where is the closest tram stop? Is there a grocery store nearby that is open on Sundays? Where can I find baby formula nearby?). Chances are very good that your apartment landlord will have information in a binder ready for guests with all of this information handy when you arrive. The list of specific questions in Italian will assure that the landlord can point you in the right direction for your particular needs as soon as you get there.

One other tip, when using self-catering apartments in Italy (and probably everywhere else, too): Since you are renting directly from property owners, and not a property management company that employs people who can be available whenever you arrive, you will want to be careful to arrive and depart when the landlord has specified. Make sure that you know what the landlord’s timing is for being available to greet you and show you around. If you know when your flight or your train is expected to arrive, mention that to your potential landlord. Please don’t treat your Italian landlord like the cable company treats you – don’t make her wait between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm for you to arrive with no idea when you expect to be there.


I prefer to rent an apartment that has been reviewed and approved by an American travel expert, who knows what comforts and amenities an American traveler usually expects: InItaly.com
InItaly.com is one of my favorite sources of information about places to stay in Italy. I could devote an entire article to their website, and still not come close to explaining the valuable information you can find there about Italy travel accommodations.
It is a site run by a group of people that are certified travel agents, and they make special arrangements with properties in Italy that they pass along to their guests. Each property that is available on their site has been stayed-in by their staff. That staff then writes a tremendous amount of information about each place so you know exactly what to expect when you arrive.

Renting an apartment through InItaly.com is simple, friendly, and professional. Overall, the cost for a rental will be a bit more than from Homelidays.com because it is like using a travel agent. Of course, if you indulge in the rich tapestry of information they provide before you ever even begin to rent an Italian apartment, you’ll probably be delighted to pay a bit more just for all of the value that they provide.

Take some time to read through the reviews of each property – they can be insightful about the times of year that you are thinking of traveling to each place. InItaly.com also has great pages about what to do and what to see while you’re there. You’ll want to set aside lots of time to peruse their site for all of the features that they have added over the many years that they have provided this service.


I prefer to stay in a luxury apartment that has hotel-like cleaning service, so that I can relax and be better rested during my stay: Halldis.com.
Halldis.com is an apartment rental agency specializing in some major European business centers, including the major cities of Italy. They offer serviced apartments, which have all of the furnishings of a well-appointed apartment, but also the cleaning and linen services of a hotel.

Their selection of apartments is quite broad, and the pictures demonstrate the high standards of decoration and comfort that you can expect from every property. Unlike self-catering apartment rental pricing (renting direct from owners at whatever price they choose), the pricing at a site like Halldis.com is more standardized. They do offer specials, but customers can expect prices to remain in the luxury business travel range.

The service at Halldis is prompt, professional, and very accommodating to guests – both while shopping for an apartment and during the stay. Because they are a company that manages the properties, their availability by phone and e-mail is reliable during business hours. Reservations have clear, fully-disclosed and standardized rules, which can be a comfort to travelers who are uneasy with cultural differences in Italian business transactions. There is also almost no language barrier for travelers that only speak English (or, at least, do not speak Italian).

All three of these sites offer calendars of availability, but reservations must be made via internet messaging forms that are part of the websites. As of yet, apartment reservations cannot be made through these sites just by entering dates and clicking on a room type like booking a hotel room.

Depending on what type of Italian vacation apartment experience you want, and how much you have budgeted to spend for lodging, there are many sites across the spectrum of Italy apartment rental sites that might work for you. These three have worked for me, personally, and I am happy to recommend them for your Italy travels, too.

Renting Apartments in Italy – Points to Consider: Appliances

When considering rental apartments in Italy, there is one thing that you may not think to find out ahead of time: how many appliances can I run at the same time?

Here in the US, this question seldom comes up. We run the clothes washer, clothes dryer, the iron, all five TVs, and the air conditioning, while we style our hair with a hair dryer and let the curling iron heat up at the same time as a way of life. In Italy, though, even most high-end apartments cannot have more than two or three major electrical appliances working at a time without blowing a fuse.

You’ll need to do a little planning to make sure you keep your electricity on and keep your landlord happy. Electrical multitasking has to be limited in Italy. Don’t let it frustrate you – plan ahead and go Italian.

If there is a fan over your Italian stove, but you also have a window in the kitchen – open the window when you can so you can also listen to the TV while you cook. You may want to finish drying your hair before starting the washing machine, to make sure your clothes don’t get trapped inside because a fuse blew due to too much demand on the electricity.

Keep in mind, also, that most appliances in Italy run on electricity. Imagine how difficult it would be to run gas lines underground through all of those ancient ruins. There is no way Italy would allow their history and precious landscape to be torn up to lay endless gas pipes like we have done in the US. Many of the appliances that could use gas (clothes dryer, stove, etc.) probably will not use gas in your Italian rental apartment. Any appliances designed to use gas – like stoves - might use small gas containers called “bombole” (see the photo to the left for one way bombole might be installed in a home). One gas container is a “bombola”. The principle behind using a bombola is similar to using a propane tank on a gas barbeque grill. Be careful with bombole if you must use them in your Italian apartment – they are known to leak. So listen to the directions and advice of your landlord to make sure you know how to use it properly.

This limited access to cooking and heating gas also explains (partially) why clothes dryers are so rare. If you do have the luxury of a clothes dryer, it will probably be electric and it will probably be the same machine as the clothes washer (yes, it washes then dries the clothes in one machine, but it takes forever). Electricity is expensive, so most Italians would rather hang their clothes to dry than “waste” money on an electric drying appliance. The other part of the reason for air-drying clothes is cultural, and more appropriate for a different article.

With the right mindset (an Italian vacation mindset) and a little planning in each day of your stay, you’ll have the power and the access to the appliances that you need. Feel free to ask the apartment owners ahead of time how many appliances can be run at a time. You will be glad you did.

Renting Apartments in Italy – Points to Consider: Layout

Just as important as the location of a rental apartment, is the layout of the apartment – especially if you’re traveling with children.

The entrance: Historic buildings have a tendency to have old doors with antiquated locking mechanisms. These historic door handles and locks are just as fascinating to the little ones as they are to grown-ups – except that they can also be an irresistible challenge to those little hands.

When considering floor plans of potential apartments, I prefer to select an apartment with my child’s bedroom (or the space in which he will likely sleep – bedroom or not) in the back of the apartment for a few reasons:
- If he wakes up in the middle of the night and decides to try to open the fancy door, he will have to get past my husband and me on the way to that door. Extra steps and adults on the way to the door can be a deterrent.
- There tends to be less noise in the back of the apartment – not always, but usually. So, if the adults would like to stay up to discuss the day’s events, do a little laundry, and plan for the next day, the child can be safely tucked away in the back of the apartment (hopefully) getting some sleep.
- If you have any company over, guests can come and go through the front door, and not have to walk and talk past the room of the sleeping child. A tangent to this is that the child’s toys can be stowed in the back room, out of view (Bonus!).

When considering floor plans of potential apartments, pay close attention to the photographs – is there enough furniture for your group?
It can seem like an odd question, but rental apartments in Italy that are owned by everyday people with everyday budgets tend not to be generously furnished. It is common to find one open living area with a loveseat (two-person small couch) and maybe one wooden chair pointed toward a television. You will also see three-person sofas which are usually IKEA-style hide-a-beds – beautiful to look at, but with thin cushions and sometimes fragile framework. Look carefully at the pictures and count the number of spots for people to sit during waking hours. Everyone in your group will want to have a soft place to land and chat after a fun day of sight-seeing.

While you’re at it, check the number of chairs at the kitchen table or dining table – is there room for everyone? What fun is it to be able to shop at the markets and come back to the apartment to cook, if everyone can’t sit at the table?

Keep a close eye on the configuration of the beds, too. Beds that are referred to as “double” are close to the American bed size referred to as “full”. Is that big enough for you and your significant other? Sometimes an ad for an apartment will say that there are two single beds that can be pushed together. That configuration can sometimes buy you a little extra sleeping surface, but the sheets can be a problem. Don’t plan on those “single” beds to be standard American “twin-size” beds, either. They will be shorter and narrower.
While you’re thinking about the beds in the apartment, though, some attitude adjustment will probably be necessary. As a woman who is over six-feet-tall, I can understand the dread of knowing that I won’t fit properly on an Italian mattress. But it’s all in how you look at it. I will be staying in an apartment in Italy; living like the Italians do (sort of). How great is that? It’s fine with me if my feet and elbows hang off the sides a little – at least I’m in Italy. Expect it, plan for it, and go in with a good attitude about it.

In somma (in summary), when shopping for a rental apartment in Italy, think about:
1) Ways to ensure the safety of the most vulnerable members of your traveling group
2) The comfort of your group during waking hours
3) The comfort of your group during sleeping hours

Pay close attention to the photos on the Italy apartment rental sites and to the specific terms used in the apartment descriptions – you’ll find more information than you think, and you’ll make a more informed choice. I’ll have more points to consider about Italian rental apartment layouts in the next installment of this series.

Renting Apartments in Italy - General Points to Consider

I am determined to get back to Italy this fall.
I'll get there somehow (personal finances and time off from work can all be worked out), but in the meantime, I'd rather think about shopping for just the right apartment rental for the trip.
There are the main considerations:

• In what city will we spend most of our time?
• Will we be renting a car? If so, what is the parking situation?
• How close is the apartment to local businesses and public transportation?
• Do we want to be in the middle of it all, or away from it all?

I have gone through the Italian apartment search enough times to have a good idea what our family's priorities are, but this trip will be a little different. I'm looking forward to going through the logic of the perfect Italian vacation apartment hunt in upcoming posts.

Pero, Ho Qualche Domande

Watched the RAInternational - or RAIUSA, as they now call it - broadcast again this morning. Basked in the beautiful Italian language with my Webster's New World Italian Dictionary at my side, as usual. Like so many others studying Italian, the strongest aspects of my skill at this point are nouns and adjectives. When trying to express myself in Italian, I mostly just utter nouns and point emphatically like a cavewoman, since my command of verb conjugation is miserable. Of course, like a typical American, I also have a varied library of expressions that sound like I know what's going on: Ottimo! (Great!) Davvero? (Really?) Certo. (Of course.) These just usually get me in trouble when Italians start off in a stream of regular conversation that I can not yet follow.
Still avoiding any meaningful focus on verbs that would allow my language skills to jump forward exponentially, I instead prefer to obsess over the sentence connectors (conjunctions, for the most part) that they use most often. The word "quindi", for instance. I hear it all the time. Turns out, it means, "therefore, so, or then".
The word "qualche" also pops up alot. Qualche means "a few".
With words like these that come up in my own speech patterns so often, it is amazing that I wasn't able to determine their definition in context (since I can, at least, figure out what they're talking about from the nouns).
Then there is my favorite: "pero". The o should have a small \ over it, but I can't get my blog to make that letter. "Pero", with the emphasis on the last syllable, means "yet, but, nevertheless, so". I can't seem to commit it to memory, and I look it up every single week.
As frustrated as I am with my inability to string whole sentences together in an appropriate tense, I still get a great deal of enjoyment out of sitting in front of my cable TV with my dictionary. Someday, when understanding Italian conversations is not so hard for me, I think I will still smile at the long and odd journey I took to get there.

Watching Movies for the Italian Scenery

I had the opportunity to watch the movie Angels and Demons this weekend. Of course, I read the book years ago, and am a big fan of the mental imagery Dan Brown conjured with his writing. The movie is a feast for the Italophile's eye, as well. Sure, I was drawn in by the suspense, by Tom Hanks' compelling performance, and by the thought of being in the presence of the treasures of the Vatican archive. But, the scenery is what made me sigh. I miss that country deeply. When I'm not in Italy, I'm thinking about Italy.
I'd watch that movie again for the story, but I'm just as likely to watch it on cable with the sound off, to wish and to dream.
I can't be the only one...