Baroque art, designer furnishings, cheap rooms

The Pensione Maria Luisa de' Medici, an inexpensive hotel in Florence, Italy

Pensione Maria Luisa de' Medici

The best inexpensive hotel in Florence is a third-floor walk-up in a 1645 palazzo smack in the center of town. The dim halls are crowded with genuine baroque art—a marble child in a chair, a chipped sculpture from the della Robbia studio, tattered oil paintings by Van Dyck and Sustermans—and the cavernous rooms are stuffed with a mix of antiques and 1950s designer furnishings.

This is the place I usually stay when I come to town. It's where I've put up everyone from my own parents to my Boy Scout troop (note: make sure you know what you are getting into when you agree to take a group of teenage boys on a month-long trip to Europe).

Bonus: You get breakfast in bed, served by Evelyn Morris, the Welshwoman who has managed the joint for years. Drawback: a variable curfew (usually between midnight and 1am). Share a bathroom, save some dough.

Via del Corso 1, between Via del Proconsolo and Via de' Calzaiuoli

Rates & Availabliity