FROM US:

The most important thing you can expect when you make a reservation with Cross-Pollinate is that you'll have a place to stay once you arrive. This may sound obvious, but we receive many e-mails from people whose reservations from other agencies mysteriously "fall through" at the last minute. We guarantee that once you have a confirmed reservation with us, we'll take responsibility to rebook you at a property of equal or higher value at our own expense if for some reason your reserved property is not habitable due to unforeseen circumstances or has been mistakenly overbooked. Of course, you'll have the option to accept or decline any alternative at your own discretion, but you will have the peace of mind that once you've booked through us, you'll have a place to stay, and that it won't cost more than expected - no matter what.

You can also expect that we'll be reachable and responsive to any inquires or problems you encounter. We have phone numbers in Italy, France, and the U.S., with an advanced messaging system that can either forward audio file messages and transcripts to us wherever we may be or can connect you to the multi-lingual reception staff at our hotel in Rome, 24 hours a day, all holidays included. There is always a way to reach a human being and once we've been contacted, we'll be on the case to address your concerns or investigate and arbitrate your problems so you can go about your day.

FROM OUR SITE:

You can expect to find accurate information that isn't exaggerated or misleading. We personally inspect and photograph our properties and try to negotiate prices based on their relative quality and what we feel is fair for the local market. We then display this for you in a logical order wherein higher priced accommodation offers either more amenities or a more sought-after location. Rates are totally clear, without the mysterious variations that so many worldwide hotels apply. The availability is updated by the owners themselves and sometimes does not reflect last-minute changes at the time of submitting a request. Reservations are not made in real time automatically - you can expect that there is a human being checking the status for you, confirming the availability with another human being and keeping notes along the way so we know who is accountable for what. If your property is not available at the time you request it, we'll be able to suggest an alternative based on your selection which you'll have the option to accept or decline.

FROM THE PROPERTY:

You can expect our properties to range from the basic and simple to the stylish and luxurious, depending on your budget. We select a variety of locations based on their touristic and local appeal, as well as a variety of styles that range from the homey guestroom to the fashionable, boutique-like B&B. Two criteria that we apply across the board are safety and cleanliness. If we would not want to stay in a property ourselves, we simply won't list it.

Our properties are all family-owned and run on a semi-professional basis. We do not work with corporate structures and therefore the treatment you can expect from your hosts will be based on mutual respect.

We work in cities that may be foreign to you and this is an important aspect to consider. If you are more comfortable staying in a hotel that is designed to reproduce all the comforts of home, then you should look into the many worldwide chains of hotels that do a wonderful job of that. Instead, with our properties, you can expect to experience life more like a local, with all the benefits as well as the pitfalls that may include.

FROM THE CITY:

Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, you'll feel like you are in a foreign city, living as a local. All the cities we work in are popular tourist destinations for good reason: they are some of the most beautiful and unique cities in Europe, with many famous sights to see. However, as with everywhere else in the world, they are not perfect, and are afflicted with many problems that are common in any large city. We operate in real cities with real problems, despite the unquestionable beauty that they are rernown for. As tourists, we are often sold on the idea of the picture-perfect postcard view and then disappointed when we have to experience the reality as well. All of these cities existed, and thrived, before the automobile, before central plumbing, and before electricity. Sometimes the modern world and its demands cannot be met in such an infrastructure and things that are normal or commonplace in one part of the world cannot always be expected in another.

VENICE
Venice is one of the most amazing cities we've ever seen, with the unique sound of water gently splashing against romantic palazzi and a complete lack of cars. It's also wet, damp, moldy and full of pigeons. The Moorish architecture is unique, and many characteristic apartments have beautiful Venetian inlaid time floors. Flooding is common when the waters rise, and in the summer it can be muggy and humid with lots of mosquitos. Being such an old city with narrow, cramped streets and buildings, it's virtually impossible to find a building with an elevator, so expect to deal with stairs. And on that note, those charmingly narrow, winding streets make for a very confusing city to find your way around in: you WILL get hopelessly lost at least once during your stay. Try to wander down the main road of Canareggio in the evening and sample all the cicchetti (Venetian tapas) and prosecco spento (flat champagne) in the local bars.

ROME
Rome is a magical place that we will always consider home. It has a quality of light in the spring and summer that illuminates the pastel, crumbling buildings in such a way that makes you feel like you're walking through a three-dimensional painting. It's also noisy, chaotic, inefficient and sometimes downright rude. As a 3,000-year-old city, there is often public work or private construction, bustling city traffic and lots of scooters and horns. Quiet and calm is hard to come by in Rome. Mold is also a constant problem brought on by damp winters, and many bathrooms added on in recent times have inefficient windows and old metal pipes that condense inside concrete walls. Ceiling heights can range from 1.5 to 3.5 meters - many apartments were once large, noble family homes that have since been cut up into many smaller apartments, with some dubious logic in the layout. Roman kitchens will rarely have microwaves, as Italians cook from scratch and heat up their leftovers on the stove. Due to small electrical lines that were installed decades ago, most apartments in the historic center do not have more than 3KW of power. Therefore, circuit breaks are common and if you use more than one heat-inducing appliance (such as hair dryer, iron, hot water heater, toaster, vacuum), most likely the electricity in the apartment will go out and you'll need to flip the switch in the circuit box to turn it back on (after having unplugged the offending appliances!). Because of this, clothes dryers are virtually unheard of in households as most families hang their clothes out to dry. While some bathrooms here use electric water heaters, many still have the old-fashioned kind. That means that hot water is limited -- once you use it up, you'll have to wait for more water to heat up again, so you'll need to plan your showers accordingly. The sewage system in the city and the plumbing in the apartments are also very old, meaning that they don't work as efficiently as they might in other countries. When it's quite rainy, an unpleasant smell can be detected in some bathrooms -- it goes away after the rain stops. Although we consider Italy (and Europe in general) to be very safe, beware of dishonest taxi drivers and pickpockets, especially from groups of young gypsy beggars who use distracting tactics. Keep your valuables out of reach and you should have no trouble. Rome is also a fairly small city and accessible in the historic center by foot. The subway doesn't reach much, since tunneling under the city would destroy countless ruins, and the bus network is not easy (or perhaps even possible) to understand. Bring comfortable shoes and be prepared to walk a lot in Rome!

FLORENCE
Florence is not only the best city for Renaissance art, but is also by far the best Italian city for bikes. The city itself if quite flat, traffic is relatively calm, and it's a small enough city to get around easily on two wheels. That means it's also a great walking city, with all of the main sights in the same central area. If you're staying around the periphery of the historic center you may want to take a bus to get from one place to another to save your feet. Florence's bus system is pretty easy to use and covers everything, but there is no subway. Addresses can be confusing in Florence, as the street numbers are divided into red and black: generally, red numbers are for businesses and black numbers are for home and hotels. So if you are looking for something and get to the address only to see something completely different, don't assume you have the address wrong or the business has closed down: keep looking, as a different-colored number will probably be somewhere else on the street. The buildings in Florence are very old and unlikely to have an elevator, so a hike to the third or fourth floor with your luggage may be in order. While many private residences have the same "quirks" as Roman residences (see above), in our experience we have found that rental properties in Florence tend to be renovated more extensively to modernize them so our guests don't usually encounter the same problems with electricity, hot water heaters, etc, that they might in Rome.

PARIS
Paris probably has the best public transportation system ever. The city is large, and what one would expect as characteristically "Parisian" can be found throughout the whole city as its expansion took place pretty much all at once. There are sites to be seen all over the city and in our opinion there isn't one special "downtown" location. Anywhere in Paris you will have bakeries, cafes and restaurants as well as a metro station that will take you everywhere else. Apartments generally have large windows, hardwood floors and depending on the age of the building, few have elevators. A typical Parisian apartment would have a toilet room separate from the rest of the bathroom. Most Parisian kitchens will have an American-style coffee maker and microwave. Cookware is usually based more on baking than stove-top: think oven-roasted dishes and quiches and gratins. Paris is a stressful city for the Parisians, and many tourists believe they are being treated rudely by the French. Perhaps in comparison to the Spanish or the Italians, they are less outgoing with tourists, but they are also a more formal mannered culture that is often misinterpreted.

BARCELONA
Barcelona is a very spread out but well-organized city, with a great subway and bus system that pretty much covers everything. Of course the historic center has a special charm, but if you stay in other neighborhoods of the city, it'll still be easy to get around. Addresses and directions may be confusing, as the city uses Catalán to label its streets and buildings, but many people you might speak to use Spanish (for example: "Carrer Rosselló" is the same street as "Calle Rossellon"). As you walk around, you might notice green netting covering up some parts of buildings -- due to the style of so many of the buildings (highly ornate, with tiles and other bits and pieces on the façades), sometimes pieces fall off and injure people, and the city covers the building with netting for safety until it can be repaired. We have found rental apartments in Barcelona to be pretty modernized with all the usual things you can find in apartments in other parts of the world, though bathrooms and balconies tend to be quite small.