my wife and i are considering a 3 week trip to italy - haven't been in italy or western europe since 1984 and then only big cities and the amafi coast. have a 5 night hotel certificate for a marriott in rome and then plan a week in umbria (spoleto) and a week on eastern coast (rocco san giovanni). plan to have a car and just wander the countryside - just did this in turkey in april and it was unbelievable! my question has to do with food. we usually plan $50 a day for the two of us - breakfast at apartment, one meal out {often lunch} then a picnic or light meal back at our place. when we are in an area we usually finding great local restaurants and have done this all around the world with no problem. usually do this 6 of 7 days and then a nice splurge meal. possible in this region?

thanks

This might be possible if you eat a light meal at very casuale places. But if you allow $15 (very modest) to buy food for a picnic dinner that leaves you $35 or only 25 euros for a dinner for two people. In my experience that may get you each a basic pasta or one a basic pasta and the other a piece of chicken. Do remember that in Italy the portions are much smaller than in the US and that meat main dishes may have a garnish but don;t come with potato or veggies - which must be ordered separately. When we have traveled in italy we allow $25 per person a day for a casulae lunch and at lest $50 per person dinner. For splurge dinners we allow $250 to $300 for the two of us. And italy is quite a bit less expensive then Italy.

Our every-day spending comes close to nytraveler's numbers, but our splurge dinners are more like $150-200 and once in a while we skip lunch. If I could only spend $50 a day for two, there would be no wine, not much meat or fish, no desserts, no afternoon gelato, no leisurely coffee at a local cafe, etc. I would feel deprived and would probably wish I'd taken a shorter trip overall to allow for a more generous food budget. If none of those things are important to you when on vacation, then you might be able to make it on $50. But not if the dollar falls farther against the euro.

Food is cheap particularly in rural areas for us we go a lot

last there in May... our big meal is also lunch we save that

kept oue meal costs below $50 per day every day except for

one when we had a sunset dinner at Zaterre/Venezia and watched

the cruise ships depart for the Adriatic still kept our

meal under 30 euro so a bit over that day but totally doable.

eurocheapo.com good tips Osterias there are cheapest...

virtualtourist.com good local postings also.

Happy Travels!

seat61.com/italy

regional trains are dirt cheap in Italia

we buy from small machines locals use with "Sconto"(discounts) and cambio class

Rome to Florence 4.5 euro per person in May.

Although I agree you can eat cheaper in the countryside than in big cities, I don't find lunch entrees to be significantly cheaper than dinner entrees unless you're sticking to light salads, panini, sharing a pizza, no wine, etc., in other words not what I would call a "big meal."

Part of what I love about being in Italy is enjoying the food and wine and the treat of gelato after miles of daily walking/strolling. Counting pennies at every meal or feeling compelled to cook/prepare most meals myself would take a lot of the 'holiday' out of it for me.

But you work with the budget you have, and it's always better than staying home.

thanks for the info. had a feeling that italy was on the expensive side. when we travel, we like to eat like locals not tourists. on our recent turkey trip we ate 2 dinners at a small diner filled with members of the working class. the culture of the area is what we enjoy. trying to squeeze in another trip this year. already been to turkey (month), toronto film festival (10 days), southeastern us (10 days), nyc 4 times (family) and have our annual winter trip in january and feb (palm springs film festival (10 days), 3 weeks in puerto vallarta, 2 weeks in cancun, then 10 days in nyc again). may trip was just an attempt to travel more while we still can - 65 & 67 years old. when we get old we may have to travel less but in more expensive scale.

Had to reply on this one toledodd! We are doing the same thing! this coming year we will be in Florida 10 days, South Carolina area 14 days, down south road trip New Orleans, Blue Ridge Mts. etc. and 2 months in Europe from late Aug to Oct. We too are 63 and 66yrs and putting as much travel in while we can! Just retired last Dec!!! Actually, we need information on what section to stay in Rome, we rent apartments with VRBO or Homeaway and can't decide which is better the Spanish Step area or the Vatican area. If anyone could help, it would greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and keep traveling!

We were in Turkey last month. We found restaurant meals to be considerably less in Turkey than in Italy.

Hi td,

>we usually plan $50 a day for the two of us ...<

That is very modest, especially for Rome, but doable.

I think that your requirements will be closer to 50E than $50 (2E for bkfst, 15E for lunch, 6E for dinner pp).

Enjoy your visit.

PS,

Meals in Turkey are much cheaper than in Italy.

Rome is tough on that budget -- but we spent two weeks in Umbria after a week in Rome this past September and that saved our overall budget from disaster. It may be more realistic to expect to spend about $75per day in Rome, and less in the countryside to make up for it. We could have eaten dinner out more often, as we stayed near Spoleto where you will be, and driving around the area is really easy. However, we loved the flat we stayed in, the kitchen was perfect, and we and enjoyed cooking from local ingredients, so you should find that $50/day is not hard to do. (Make enough for leftovers!) Picnics are great, and you can have a lovely lunch out a couple times. I think I named a couple places in my recent trip report which you may enjoy. When you make a longer trip like you are planning, you kind of learn as you go how to stretch your food budget. We discovered we were using the local supermarket more than "village shops." Plus you can figure on splurging once in a while because you can make up for it on other days.

It's not that Italy is especially expensive (take a look at Switzerland!) - it's that Turkey is very inexpensive compared to western europe.