House Sitting In Italy – Our Experience House Sitting in Rome and Lake Como

If you are looking for house-sitting opportunities in Italy, please click the green button to jump straight to the bottom of this post.

We recently had the pleasure of sitting in a house in Italy. Before that, we had looked after homes in the UK, France, and Spain.

We purchased a little camper van in the UK at the start of April and planned to drive from Manchester, UK, to Athens, Greece. We planned two house sits on our Italian stop on this road trip. 

Our first house sit in Italy would be near Lake Como for three weeks, and the second was in Rome for 2.5 months.

House Sitting in Lake Como, Italy

We had arranged this house-sitting assignment through Trusted House Sitters. The homeowner’s listing did not include pictures and only described the house in vague detail.

English was not her first language, so she wasn’t too confident talking on the phone, so we decided to go for it!

At the end of the call, when organizing the sit, she also mentioned in passing that she had four cats, but they were very low maintenance, and that won’t be a problem for us with all of our house-sitting experience.

Before arriving in the town, we had been in the camper for nine days, making our way up from our last stop in Barcelona, Spain.

It was a long drive up North, but we passed through some incredibly stunning mountain ranges—and even the highest city in France! wouldn’t

Arriving At Our First House Sit in Italy

We arrived at the home and were pleasantly surprised. It was a rather large 3-story house.

It had a huge automatic front gate, greenery, and garden spaces. We arrived after the homeowner had already left for this particular seat, so we unpacked the camper, familiarized ourselves with the home, and tried to track down the animals.
The homeowner mentioned that we would be hard-pressed to see any of the cats except one, who made up for the rest by being right by our side the entire sit (it was pretty cute!).

The area was very close to the Swiss border, so it was a lovely spot surrounded by tall, rugged mountains and several lakes.

The area was famous for its hikes in the hills.

So we made good use of our surroundings and spent every second day discovering new walks, checking out mountaintop views, and demolishing the local cuisine, and Jay spent a lot of time on his bike up in the hills.

The three weeks at this place went very fast. Before we knew it, we cleaned the home and packed the camper again for our next stay!

House Sitting in Italy – Our Second House Sit

Our next house-sitting destination was Rome, around 500km south of our location. We had ten days before that one started.

We planned the route to pass through some of the places we had really wanted to see in Italy: Lake Como, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Pisa, and a couple of cool little lakes.

We managed to visit all the little towns over a couple of days and see some of Italy’s essential sites. However, once we hit the lake at Lake Bolsena, we decided that this would be where we would spend the remaining five days before our stay in Rome started. 

Lake Bolsena was a beautiful area that allowed free camping on the lakeside. This was an excellent spot to catch up on some work, eat more local foods, and relax.

House Sitting in Rome, Italy

We had been very excited about house sitting in Rome. The opportunity to do so for just over two months was amazing! This would give us ample time to check out all the tourist sights and find little local gems we would otherwise not have the opportunity to do.

We arrived late in the evening to meet the next homeowner and our new little friend, Ugo, a black 11–month–old puppy full of energy, sass, and love.

This house sit in Rome was arranged through Trusted House Sitters and was our 20th sit through the platform. Instantly, we fell in love with Ugo. He was full of energy, sass, and love. Walking Ugo is a fantastic way to see a city every day.

Particularly one like Rome, which has many green spaces filled with statues, monuments, and points of interest—you could walk around this city for years and see something new every day! The home was within walking distance of the center of Rome. This was a great spot to be based for two months.

Every couple of days, we would head out and explore the different neighborhoods of Rome. We even timed the house sit in Rome perfectly to match up with the free days for the Colosseum, the Vatican, and St Peter’s Basilica.

When we were house-sitting in Rome during a heat wave, it was too much for poor little Ugo, so at the owner’s request, we would leave the air conditioning on for him morning, noon, and night!

This also really helped us sleep! Fortunately, Ugo could not navigate the stairs up to the loft, so he was not sleeping on the bed, making things warmer than needed!

We had a ball while housesitting in Rome. We went wine tasting, visited all the must-see tourist spots, and discovered parts of town that we would never have found if we had been there only a few days or weeks.

Do You Want to House-sit in Italy?

Throughout our house-sitting adventures in Europe, we have used house-sitting websites to find our assignments. The site that we used was Trusted House Sitters.

If you want to join Trusted House Sitters, you can get an EPIC 20% off your membership! To get your EPIC discount, click the button below, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout!

Click below to search our favorite sites and find your perfect house-sitting job in Italy! 

Need Help Getting Started?

Have we got you excited about house sitting in Rome? We love sharing our house-sitting experiences and teaching others how to become house-sitters and start their journeys. 

Need Help With House Sitting?