An option: Renting rooms in private houses

Recently I discovered a new way to stay: Especially if you are planning to stay longer, it may be interesting to consider to rent a room in a bigger private apartment. I discovered a web site that provides a link between who offers and who searches: Easystanza. Here is a direct link to rooms available in Siena.

Consider that a room in the center of Siena may cost this way between 300€ to 500€ per month.
I see several benefit of this kind of renting:

• You get to stay in a big overall house, not in a tiny apartment or hotel room.
• Once you understand the house timings, you can use "common spaces" like living room and kitchen, or balcony and gardens if available.
• Again with respect of your host, you can create links with locals and get insights and hints.
• If you choose carefully you can get your place in historical city center in historical real houses.

Some time the host is a small or big family of residents that happen to have one or two extra rooms in the house, other times it is a house rented by students that have an extra room (or sometime even an extra bed in a big room...) or that rent their room for the summer time holiday, as they maybe leave the city to get back at their home town.

Some times the bedrooms have a dedicated bathroom, that provides a lot of privacy.

Of course it is a bit more risky than staying in official hotels, put using tools like Easystanza provides some degree of safety, as people have to regiester to get online, and also you can interact with the host before visiting the place to have a feeling of the situation.

Sure a holiday made in a shared house will have deeper memories as you can more link with the reality of the place, in my opinion.

Good luck! :-)