ladylovesred

My cousin and I are planning a trip to Rome at the end of August into the first week of September. We need help with finding a clean hotel at a reasonable price. We would also like to travel by train to Florence and/or Capri. Please give us suggestions as to where to stay and which other city to visit via train. Our budget is approximately $3,500 for the total trip. Thanks in advance

MmePerdu

How many nights will you be in Italy? And is the $3500 each, including airfare?

ladylovesred

We would like to stay about 6-7 nights and the $3,500 is total including airfare. Is this even possible?

Andrew

I don't know where you are flying from, but let's say $1200 per person airfare. If $3500 is your total budget (both of you?), that leaves you $1100.

Let's say $400 for a week of lodging in Rome - maybe not the ideal location or most luxurious place but if you have to meet a budget, you'll make it work.


About $700 left to eat, public transportation, museums. A little tight, but probably doable.

ladylovesred

What other city would you choose on our budget?

Andrew

Probably Florence. Guess is it is cheaper to train back to Rome and fly out of Rome vs. doing an "open jaw" into Florence/out of Rome or vice versa, but I don't know where you are starting out, so who knows? Flying into Pisa/ train to Florence / train to Rome/ fly out of Rome or vice versa might work too depending on your origin city.

ladylovesred

leaving from NY

Andrew

Looks like you can either do a round trip JFK to/from Rome for about $850 round trip in September or even do JFK to Rome / Florence to JFK (Air Berlin) for not much more. Try www.kayak.com to try different dates. That would should give you a little better budget for lodging etc.

If you want some "alternate" lodging besides conventional hotels, try this website:

http://www.cross-pollinate.com/

These may be budget "B&B" places without much in the way of customer service (give you the keys when you arrive, show you your way around, and then you are on your own), but they can be great values. You could also try AirBnB, but I've never used it personally. (I have used Cross Pollinate a few times, every place I've booked has been at least OK if not great.)

bvlenci

Rome and Florence would be a very manageable pair for a first trip of one week. Capri is a long trip, and it's not near any airport, so you'd have to spend one night near your departure airport. I don't think it's worth the hassle. It's also not cheap to get to or cheap to stay in. It's too far for a day trip. You could make a day trip to Florence, but, unless the ticket price is much higher, you should consider Andrew's suggestion of flying into Rome and returning from Florence.

Here is a hotel in which I've stayed a number of times. It's near Termini station, which is very convenient for visiting most of the sights of Rome. It's not the most charming of neighborhoods, but it's safe and the hotel is quite clean and comfortable. It looks as though you could get a double en suite room for less than €400 for six nights.

http://www.booking.com/hotel/it/lucia-roma.en-gb.html

The customer service in this hotel (actually a pensione) was always excellent when I was there, taking into consideration that it was a small family-operated hotel with only three family members on staff. I haven't been back since they got into a partnership with another hotel in the same building, but one of my neighbors has stayed there since then and found it much the same as before. It's possible that the parents have retired, requiring such a partnership. Unlike most budget hotels, there was always someone on site 24 hours a day. The desk wasn't staffed, but there was a bell to call someone ifl you needed help. There was adequate air conditioning, and an elevator, other things rare in a budget hotel.

If you're very careful, you can manage on €25-€30 per day per person for meals. That would mean having a slice of pizza or panino for lunch sometimes, or picking up some fruit, cheese, and bread at a grocery to eat in your room. There are two self-service restaurants in Termini station where you can get a quick, cheap meal. I would scrimp all week and save up for a good meal in a nice but reasonably priced restaurant for your last night.

The most expensive visit in Rome is the Vatican Museums, which costs €16, plus a €4 surcharge if you buy the tickets online. Since the ticket lines are usually very long, you might want to spend the extra money to avoid waiting in line. If you don't want to spend the money, you could just visit St. Peter's Basilica, which is free; go either before 9 AM or after 5 PM to avoid a long security line. If you want to buy the tickets to the Vatican Museums, use this site:

www.mv.vatican.va

Another very popular, but pricey, ticket is the combined ticket to the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill. This costs €12, plus a €2 reservation fee. Again, if this seems like too much money, you can see a great deal of the Roman Forum without paying to go in, and (in my opinion) the Colosseum is more impressive from the outside than the inside. This is another site that has long queues, but you can usually buy your ticket at the entrance to the Roman Forum or the Palatine Hill, where the wait is usually less. (You can also buy your tickets at the Museum of the Baths of Diocletian, near Termini station, where I'm sure there's no line at all.) If you want to buy the tickets online, the official site is:

http://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm

There are many other wonderful museums in Rome which cost a fraction of the cost of these very popular places, and they're also blissfully uncrowded. Some of my favorites are: the Barberini Gallery (€7, Italian painting from medieval to early modern times); Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (ancient Roman sculpture, mosaics, and frescoes, €7, and the ticket gives you access to three other museums, over the course of three days); the Corsini Gallery (medieval to and early modern painting, €5, or €9 in combination with the Barberini Gallery); the Villa Farnesina (Renaissance villa with a lovely garden, and frescoes by Raphael.

There is also some great art in the churches of Rome, and they're all free to visit. The Church of San Luigi dei Francesi has three Caravaggio paintings; the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli has Michelangelo's statue of Moses; the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria has Bernini's statue of the Ecstacy of Santa Teresa (now being restored, but maybe visible by the time of your trip. Santa Maria del Popolo in Piazza del Popolo has numerous works by famous artists. The Pantheon, originally a Roman temple, but now a church, is one of the great marvels of ancient Roman engineering; its dome was the world's largest for over 1000 years, and it's still the largest unreinforced concrete dome.

You can get around Rome cheaply by bus. The tickets cost €1.50 and are good for 100 minutes, including transfers between trams, buses, urban trains, and the metro. (Only one entry to the metro system is allowed per ticket, but you can transfer from one metro line to the other as long as you don't exit through a turnstile. There are transit passes, but for most people they wouldn't pay off. Many of the sights are within easy walking distance of each other. I usually buy a bunch of tickets to keep on hand and replenish the supply when it's running low.

Florence is no cheaper than Rome; I find it about the same price. The only places considerably cheaper would be provincial non-touristy towns, but that's not what most people on a first trip to Italy want to see. In my little provincial town, you can get a room for €50 a night, but charming as it is, I don't think you'd want to spend a week here, and getting here and away is a bit of an enterprise if you don't have a car.

If you want to go from Rome to Florence cheaply, you can take the regional train, which costs only about €20. It takes 3 1/2 hours to get there, but it takes a more scenic route than the high-speed train, which takes only 1 1/2 hours. You can get cheap tickets on the high-speed trains if you buy the tickets months in advance, but they are not changeable or refundable, so don't get them unless you're positive about your plans. The regional tickets are always the same price, so you can just buy them when you get to Rome. If you want to buy high-speed tickets online, use this site:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...005817f90aRCRD

You have to use the Italian names for the cities. The stations you would want are Roma Termini and Firenze S. Maria Novella.

There is a good cheap self-service restaurant in Florence near the Duomo, on Via de Pecori, number 11. It's on the upper floor, so not easy to see at a glance. I belong to an art group that often takes excursions to Florence to see an exhibit, and we always eat there.

The two biggest draws in Florence are the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia. The Uffizi is huge and is highly concentrated in Renaissance religous painting (€8). If that's not your cup of tea, I'd skip it. The Accademia (€8) is much smaller, and is famous for having the original of the statue of David by Michelangelo; a copy is in Piazza della Signoria.

There are also some lesser known places in Florence to see great art at a reasonable price. The Church of Santa Maria Novella has half a dozen great Renaissance masterpieces, which you can visit for €5; The Museum of San Marco is an ex-monastery, where the cells of the monks were decorated with spectacular frescoes by the Beato Angelico (also known as Fra Angelico); it costs only €4 to visit; the Baptistery of the Duomo has amazing medieval golden mosaic ceilings (€10); the Bargello Museum has a great collection of Renaissance sculpture (€4). Unlike Rome, the churches of Florence don't all have free admission. The Brancacci Chapel in the Chiesa del Carmine costs €6; the Church of Santa Croce also costs €6.

Central Florence is very compact. Once you get there, you should be able to walk to everything.

All things considered, I think you could keep your costs at destination under $1000 for both of you, helped by the strong US dollar. For a week, I would consider €400 for modest double hotel rooms; €350 for food, scrimping a bit; €60 for transportation, including the cheap train to Florence; and €100 for visits to museums and archaeological sites, and incidentals. That's just a little over €900, and it could be pared back even more, I think.

NewbE

This is such great information that I hesitated to add my idea, but here goes anyway...

Years ago, SO and I stayed in a convent for what I recall was a very, very low rate. We had a private bath, and the room was perfectly acceptable in a somewhat charmingly spartan way (as you might expect ) There was even a bar in the lobby which served coffee and such in the mornings and alcoholic drinks in the evening, staffed by the nuns!

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to arrange this kind of thing now, but back then we saved money, had a pleasant stay, and came away with unusual memories!

NewbE

Out of curiosity, I Googled, and found lots of websites offering convent stays--I have no idea which are reputable. But this blog entry, a few years old, now, I thought was interesting:
http://travelblog.viator.com/convent...tions-in-rome/

ladylovesred

Thank you for the wealth of information! I will check out the sites provided and let you know what we decide on. Again, thank you!

BigRuss

BTW, flying from NYC means you should be able to up your on-the-ground budget a bit. Transatlantic flights from JFK or EWR should not be in the 1200 range, you should be able to shop for fares under 1000. This estimate does NOT account for any connections to the NYC area that your or your cuz need to obtain.

Kayak.com is my go-to for airfares.

bvlenci

Convents are often a good inexpensive choice. Some of them, though charge as much as a good hotel. They also usually (but not always) have a curfew. The main problem with them, from my perspective, is that they often completely sell out long before I start looking for lodging. If you want to stay in a convent, especially one of the inexpensive ones, book early.

Santa Susanna, the American Catholic Church in Rome has a list of convents that offer rooms:

http://www.santasusanna.org/comingToRome/convents.html

They also recommend this site for finding convent lodging:

http://www.hospites.it/Objects/Home1_Eng.asp

EYWandBTV

I know this is not your question, but do you have any flexibility in your dates for travel? Rome will be a furnace in late August. So maybe check on the AC in whatever place you reserve.

NewbE

Good points, bvlenci. Ours did not have a curfew; the blog post I linked to points out that some do, some don't, so it's an important piece of information.

Ours also did not offer a meal plan--again, some do, some don't.

ElendilPickle

>>the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria has Bernini's statue of the Ecstacy of Santa Teresa (now being restored, but maybe visible by the time of your trip.<<

Really? Darn. That's one thing I really wanted to see while we're in Rome.

This is a helpful thread for me, though, since we also travel inexpensively. Thanks to all of you who shared.

Lee Ann

MmePerdu

I stayed here for a week on my first trip to Rome, on my own, and enjoyed the company of the other women. Less expensive than many of the convent accommodations. If your cousin is also a woman:

http://www.foresteriaorsa.altervista...esteria_uk.htm

ladylovesred

Is it better to book hotel and airfare separately or should I be looking for a package?

NewbE

My advice is, research the two separately so you know a good deal when you see one.