Where to Sleep?

So, next step in the planning was to start finding accommodation, which proved a bit trickier than I thought. 

My first instinct was to look for camping grounds that had little cabins, but it soon became obvious that any of these types of parts were quite a way out of the big towns, and we would spend a lot of our time travelling in to and out of the city each day.

Cheap hotels could have been an option, but as a party of 4 it isn't always easy finding rooms to fit us all comfortably.  And the price of the room and the cost of eating out every meal would add major $$$ to our budget.

So I have been investigating the Homelidays web site, which is basically a page for people who wish to rent out their properties on a short or long term basis.  There are accommodations available in pretty much every European city, so I was able to find something in every one of our stops.

In most cases we will be staying in a 1-bedroom apartment, with our own self-contained kitchen and a washing machine, meaning we can cook for ourselves and do some laundry when we need to.  Very convenient!

So far we have confirmed bookings in Rome, Florence, Venice, Prague and Munich.  Since we are only stopping for 2 nights in Vienna we have decided to stay in a hotel room there - a little bit of luxury, and a chance for me to escape cooking, even if only for a brief time :)

We are not sure what to do about Paris at the moment.  We have requested an exchange through our timeshare, but are unsure whether we will get one or not, as it is obviously a very popular place in summer.  We managed it when we were on honeymoon nearly 12 years ago, but don't know if we will be that lucky this time around.  I have some feelers out for apartments in Paris just in case.

London is the big question mark at the moment.  David has relatives in the UK, but I don't want to impose the 4 of us on them all!  We will be spending a lot of our 2 weeks in London catching up with everyone, but I'm not sure if any will be keen on having all of us camped in their living room :)