Residence hotels in Amalfi Coast ★★☆

A residenza (residence hotel) in Amalfi Coast—sometimes called an ApartHotel, serviced flats, condo hotel, or an all-suite hotel—is a cross between an apartment building and a hotel.

A "Residence"—like the Arethusa Vacanze in Siracusa, Sicily, pictured above—offer apartment amenities and hotel services a serviced apartment available for short-term rentals, usually with a hotel-like front desk and some level of maid service—kind of like the all-suites hotels in America beloved by business travelers (and savvy traveling families).

Accommodations are at least studios with kitchenette, if not full-blown mini-apartments, and might sleep anywhere for one to six people.

Guest quarters tend to be a bit functional and bland, with a focus more on basic comfort and amenities rather than style. I've noticed that many residence hotel properties do not seem to refresh things as frequently as hotels, so they tend show their age more—this is far down on my list of what I care about in my accommodations, but I thought you should know.

Residence hotels are usually used mainly for longish stays. A few have three-night or one-week minimums, though most allow you to stay for as few as 3, 2, or even 1 night.

Maid service is rarely daily. They are usually cleaned weekly, though sometimes more frequently. 

All-suite hotels are a godsend for traveling families, since you can use the kitchen to treat meals more flexibly and cut down on dining costs. (Also, they tend to be bigger—if duller—than your average hotel room.)

The reason this page is separate from that on how to rent an apartment is because I consider apartment rentals to be where you are getting a private apartment in a building surrounded by flats inhabited by actual local residents, whereas in one of these "residence" hotels, everyone is a visitor from out of town.

Essentially, it's a bit like getting a time share just for the week or month—only without the whole annoying sales pitch. They are often used by folks in town on business for an extended period (in fact, when I studied abroad in Rome, Amalfi Coast, a "residence" near the school served as student housing for the program), but that doesn't mean travelers can't shack up in them as well. You just have to plan to stick around town for a bit longer than the average tourist.

Not that this is a bad thing.

For about four months back in 1993, I lived in a residence in Rome—the Residence Medaglie d'Oro, a serviceable, if otherwise unforgettable, place in the un-touristy, middle-class Prati neighborhood north of the Vatican.

First day there, I was leaning over the railing of my balcony and happened to look up.

Two floors above me, a young woman was also leaning on her balcony rail, so I called up, "Buongiorno!" She looked down and replied, "I don't speak Italian." Turns out she was from, of all places, Tampa, Florida and we soon became friends.

Reader, I married her.

I can't wait to bring our sons to Rome one day and show them the residence where Mommy and Daddy met.

• Agoda.com - Good generalist booking agency with more than 4,200 serviced apartments in Italy.Partner
• Booking.com - More than 3,900 residence hotels, aparthotels, condo hotels, and townhouse suites in Italy.Partner
• Hotels.com - Booking engine listing several dozen apart-hotels, residences, and condo hotel accommodations in Italy's major cities.Partner
• Biz-stay.com - Keeps (farily well) updated lists of links to serviced apartment chains in every country by city. Doesn't cover independent residence hotels, but a decent place to look.
• Sacoapartments.com - Some 46 serviced flats in 160 locations around the world, including in 8 in Italy.

• Homeaway.com - So many places it doesn't even bother listing rentals past the first 5,000—and that's just in Rome or Tuscany.Partner
• Vrbo.com - VRBO stands for "Vacation Rentals By Owner," a worldwide virtual classifieds section devoted to villas, apartments, cottages, houses, and other places to lay your head. Though designed to allow villa and vacation home owners to rent to the public directly—ostensibly cutting out the extra costs involved in working through a middle-man rental agency—in my experience plenty of small-fry local rental agencies use it as well (not that there's anything wrong with renting through those folks; just wanted to let you know that not every property listed is truly direct from the owner).Partner
• Booking.com - Listing nearly 66,000 apartments across Italy, including more than 5,300 in Rome, more than 2,700 in Florence, and more than 1,800 in Venice or Milan. Wow.Partner
• Hotels.com - Good generalist booking engine with plenty of "Apartments" options in the filter screens for each destination.Partner
• Interhomeusa.com - Some 3,530 rentals in France, of which about a hundred in Rome. Partner
• Airbnb.com - Tens of thousands of listings—but caveat emptor. Anyone can post a listing, so trust only the ones with lots of reviews.
• Agoda.com - Good generalist booking agency with a resepctable 238 apartments available in Rome, 130 in Florence.Partner

You will notice that all hotels, B&Bs, and other lodgingds (as well as sights and restaurants) on this site have a ReidsItaly.com star designation from ☆☆☆ to ★★★.

This merely indicates that I feel these accommodations offer a little something that makes them special (or extra-special, or extra-extra special, etc.).

These star ratings are entirely based on personal opinion, and have nothing to do with the official Italian hotel ratings—which have more to do with quantifiable amenities such as minibars, and not the intangibles that make a hotel truly stand out, like a combination of great location, friendly owners, nice style, and low prices.

In general, a pricier place to stay has to impress me that it is worth the added expense.

This is why I give ★★★ to some (official) "two-star" hotels or B&Bs that happen to provide amazing value for the money—and similarly have ranked a few (official) "four-star" properties just (★★☆).

Accommodations rates vary wildly—even at the same hotel or B&B—depending on type of room, number of people in it, and the season.

That's why here at ReidsItaly.com we simply provde a general price range indicating the rough rate you should expect to pay for a standard double room in mid-season.

There are three price ranges, giving you a sense of which lodgings are budget, which are moderate, and which are splurges: