The Best Budget-Friendly Hotels to Book in Italy

The clue is in the name at the Hotel Panorama in Bologna. It’s an old-fashioned place with an old-school pensione atmosphere, where the rooms have either patterned tile or parquet floors and shiny bedspreads. There are great views – either over the jewel-green countryside beyond Bologna’s city limits or over the russet-red townscape of this university town’s colonnaded streets and medieval towers. You’re also right in the centre of the action: only 300m (1,000ft) from Piazza Maggiore, the Due Torri and the Neptune fountain.

The town of Matera in the southern region of Basilicata clings above a ravine. The town, resembling an elaborate nativity scene, would be dramatic enough amid the seemingly barren stony landscape, but the houses also harbour a secret: they’re built above and into the natural caves that dot the top of the gorge. Hotel Belvedere is one of the town’s hotels that have rooms built into the caves, with a belvedere (beautiful view) across the town from its terrace.

In the Unesco-listed Cilento National Park, the Marulivo Hotel is one of the top cheap hotels in Italy for its glorious location. This is the kind of place that makes for an almost cartoonishly ideal Italian getaway: a former monastery with terraces overlooking the sea, with some exceptional sunsets to boot. Rooms elegantly combine wrought-iron bedsteads, wood beams, ornate metal lanterns and yolky yellow or exposed stone walls, and proffer more dreamy views across the countryside and Palinuro Coast.

Cool, pared-down, minimalist rooms with blond wood and abstract art are the name of the game at Hotel Bolzano, a fantastic budget hotel in Italy’s gateway to the Dolomites. You’re in a stylish launch pad for winter or summer sports. There’s a Scandi vibe to the look of the hotel, including the Eiffel-style chairs and colour pop walls in the dining rooms, and it’s only 10 minutes’ walk from the city centre, and 20 minutes’ stroll from the ski slopes.

Among the best cheap hotels in Italy, the Hotel Park makes the list for its marry-me location. On the eastern shore of Lake Como, it’s close to Lecco, a picturesque town blanketing the banks of the lake. You’re perfectly placed here for cycling, walking, boating and lazing on the nearby beach. Rooms are plain and simple, allowing you to concentrate entirely on the endless blue of the lake if you book a lakefront room (rooms at the back overlook the mountainside).

Arcobaleno (“rainbow”) is a great budget hotel choice in the Sardinian capital. Weirdly, there’s not a rainbow in sight: rooms are calm and serene, with white walls and exposed brickwork. It’s worth paying the extra euros for a superior double, which comes with a balcony overlooking the city; splashing on a suite gets you a chandelier. A recommended cheap hotel in Italy, this place lets you stay in the centre of Cagliari, within easy reach of a plate of delicious su porcheddu (roast suckling pig).

In a historic 17th-century house on the San Moisè Canal, this is one of Venice’s finest cheap hotels, in a remarkable location only minutes from St Mark’s Square. You’d never think this was a budget option: check out the quintessentially Venetian, gilded, palatial rooms, with their ornate gold-framed beds, mirrors and Murano glass chandeliers. There’s the added attraction of an ochre-painted, greenery-filled courtyard, shaded by a vine and hung with fairy lights.

Set around a leafy, shaded terrace in movie-set pretty Trastevere, Le Clarisse is among Rome’s best budget hotels. Rooms have a Tuscan feel, with polished terracotta floors and wood-beamed ceilings. It sits in the Trastevere backstreets, all ivy-draped buildings and sunny terraces, where you’re only a short stroll from Ponte Sisto across the Tiber River. The district is packed with atmospheric bars and superlative neighbourhood restaurants serving steaming plates of Roman staples such as amatriciana and cacio e pepe.

Located in one of Rome’s most charming neighbourhoods, with washing flapping between ochre-painted 17th-century townhouses and cafe tables on cobbled squares, Suites Trastevere has rooms that look much more expensive than their budget: they have been beautifully muralled with paintings of Roman sights such as the Trevi Fountain or views across the rooftops. It’s also a cosy, friendly B&B, where the helpful owners go out of their way to accommodate guests’ needs, and you’re within easy reach of Trastevere train station.

From the sink-in sofas and kitchenettes to an all-inclusive snack policy, this brilliant-value B&B in Palermo feels more like a good friend’s house than a hotel. Unlike in most friends’ houses, however, you’ll get art-splashed rooms with private bathrooms and mini-bars, and a central location by both the park-lined waterfront and the ornate Palazzo Valguarnera-Gangi museum. Every apartment comes with a balcony, so enjoy your fluffy local brioche breakfast al fresco, soaking up the sounds of Sicily.

Some wallet-friendly pads can compromise on design, but not this one – clean crisp whites, funky tiled floors, sink-in bathtubs and clever built-in tables to save space all come as part of the package. You’re in the heart of Palermo, just off shopping drag Via della Libertà, so never far from the action, and because neither children under four nor partying groups are welcomed, couples can count on peaceful, low-key vibes, too. The perfect place for a romantic getaway.

Welcome to a pretty little Pisa pad that delivers proper luxury at a steal. The cream and taupe decor is enviably chic – especially in the main lounge, with its soaring beamed ceilings, book-lined fireplace and Insta-worthy breakfast spread of sticky pastries and tea in silver pots. The clutch of romantic, subtly lit bedrooms are lovely, too, but the real star? A private garden full of trees: the ideal spot for sipping a glass of feel-good Chianti on a warm evening.