We set aside two weeks in late September/early October 2015 to go to Italy and bought our tickets in May through RyanAir (226 euros for the two of us, round trip, from Dublin, Ireland). We chose autumn because we knew that summer in Italy is very hot and full of tourists (my nightmare) and also because I wanted to be part of the grape harvest and have more romance on the quiet walks...lol
NOTE: Actually, what I wanted to do was much more than just pick grapes. I wanted to be part of the daily lives of the people who own properties in the countryside, you know? They have a type of accommodation option that is very popular in Tuscany and is known as Agritourism, but since the package usually includes accommodation + meals, it didn't fit our budget. They say you eat really well, because all the ingredients are fresh and the meals are prepared with great care and exclusively by the families who live in these houses. Delicious, right? One day we'll just enjoy this country life with delicious food.
Since Celo already knew Italy and wanted to see different things, we decided to mix the most popular cities with others that are less well-known. We had a lot of help from a cute friend who went to Italy a little before us and followed almost the same itinerary, so it was really easy to put together our own. Thanks, Paulinha! <3
Summary Itinerary
Cities visited
In these 14 days, we passed through 2 countries (Vatican and Italy) and visited the 18 cities below:
Many people questioned the fact that we didn't include VENICE in our itinerary, since it is one of the most romantic and famous cities in the country and probably the most popular destination in Italy for couples. The reason is simple: I found all the accommodations to be very expensive for what they offered (almost everything was already fully booked 3 months in advance) and we were on a tight budget.
In my opinion, it wouldn't be worth going to Venice and not being able to have dinner in a romantic place or pay almost 100 euros for a gondola ride just the two of us, you know? We're stingy with a lot of things, lol, but we make a point of experiencing the most special things each city has to offer. I know that one day we'll be able to return to Venice and I'll tell you all about it here on blog! 🙂
Summary of Rome and Vatican
- 19/09 – We arrived in Rome and visited some churches, the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon and ended the day at Castel Sant'Angelo.
- 20/09 – We visited the Colosseum, the Palatine, the Roman Forum, the Il Vittoriano monument and the Capitaline Museums.
- 21/09 – Day to visit the Vatican! St. Peter's Square, St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum (where the Sistine Chapel is). Then in Rome we visited other churches and rested in Piazza di Spagna.
- 22/09 – We visited the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (my favorite in the country), the Bocca de la Verità, the Circus Maximus and the Il Buco della Serratura. We took a train from Rome to Bologna.
See more details at post Italy – Rome and Vatican (4 days).
Bologna Summary
- 23/09 – We visited the Basilica of San Petronio, Piazza Maggiore, some palaces, the Abbazia di Santo Stefano and the oldest university in the world.
See more details at post Italy – Bologna (1 day).
Tuscany Summary
- 24/09 – We left Bologna early and went straight to Florence.
- 25/09 – We spent the day in Florence.
- 26/09 – We left Florence in the middle of the day, passed through Lucca and went to our villa.
- 27/09 – From the village, we visited the cities of San Gimignano and Volterra.
- 28/09 – From the village, we visited the cities of Monteriggione and Siena.
- 29/09 – From the village, we visited the cities of Cortona and Montepulciano.
- 09/30 – We returned the car in Florence and took the train to La Spezia, our base to explore Cinque Terre.
To learn more about these places above, see the posts below:
- Italy – Tuscany – Summary (4 days)
- Italy – Tuscany – San Gimignano and Volterra (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Florence (2 days)
- Italy – Tuscany – Lucca (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Monteriggioni and Siena (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Montepulciano and Cortona (1 day)
Cinque Terre Summary
- 30/09 – We arrived in La Spezia in the middle of the day and stayed there.
- 01/10 – We took a boat to Portovenere (considered the Sixth Land and in my opinion, the most interesting of all) and from there, we took another boat to Riomaggiore, which is the largest of the Cinque Terre. We took a train between the five small towns (Vernazza, Manarola, Corniglia, Monterroso and Riomaggiore) and returned to La Spezia.
- 02/10 – We stayed in La Spezia and Riomaggiore (annoying rain all day).
- 03/10 – We left La Spezia for Pisa.
To learn more about the above places, see:
Accommodation in Italy
The best surprise of this trip was definitely our villa in the Tuscan countryside. It was stunning, just the way I always wanted it. <3 We chose Bertini Falls We spent 4 wonderful nights there and we are already making plans to return with the rest of the family. The entire house cost only 59 euros per night, but they also have houses with 2 and 3 bedrooms. It would be perfect to get married there too, but that will have to wait for another life. (HAHAHA)
Since we were short on money for this trip, we chose relatively cheap accommodations, and therefore not always in the best locations. Nothing that a bus, subway or walk couldn't solve, right? We stayed in a few guest houses (affittacamere in Italian), which are basically apartments with suites that share a kitchen and living area. I found it to be great value for money, mainly because of the differentiated service.
Ah!!! Our average daily rate was 67 euros, which was below our target of 80. Good point for us, but we didn't have all the comfort in the world, right... lol. Here are our accommodations and their summaries (I'll put photos and more details in the posts of each city):
- POMEGRANATE – Budget Rooms (guest house very close to the Colosseum)
- BOLOGNA – Suite Hotel Elite (hotel with great room, but far from the center and with wifi (bad)
- FLORENCE – Crystal Ship Apartment (very well located apartment, with a tiny bathroom and terrible wifi)
- MONTAIONE (our base for touring Tuscany) – Bertini Falls (village in a rural area, with great infrastructure and service)
- LA SPEZIA (our base for touring around Cinque Terre) – Affittacamere City Rest (guest house next to the train station, which is great)
- PISA – Cisanello Residence (guest house poorly located, with a very noisy flush. Only 45 euros. I should have guessed, right? lol)
Transport
We rented a car just to drive around Tuscany, picking it up on 26/09 in Florence and returning it on 30/09 at the same location. We paid 120 euros for the car with insurance at Alamo (we booked it through website RentalCars), we didn't have any stress and we still receive upgrade!!! We could have kept the car for more days, but because of the stressful experience Celo had on his first time in Italy, we chose to use the trains as much as possible.
We take the train to get around our main bases and for those who think that trains in Italy are expensive, see the table below (I am excluding trains within Cinque Terre, that cost less than 20 euros). Four fairly long trains for less than 100 euros. We could have saved more by buying everything in advance, but we wanted to leave the “half” free so as not to have to stress of schedule. Did you find it expensive?
After this trip, I have to agree with Celo that the less you spend time driving in Italy, the better. There are signs limited traffic in all tourist cities, which means that only locals are allowed to drive through certain areas. If you happen to enter these areas, you will be fined and the car rental company will charge you extra fees because of these fines. In addition to this detail, Italians are not very polite and patient in traffic and the streets are narrow and often have no direction signs. Why take the risk, right?
Restaurants
I don't even need to say that we came back fed up with pasta, right? Good grief! We ate a lot of pasta, lasagna, pizza and focaccia. Everything was delicious, relatively cheap (we found great pasta for less than 10 euros) and well served. We tried the famous ragù in Bologna, which is an improved and delicious bolognese sauce. We eat cheese stracchino and pecorino in abundance, wonderful too, besides a lot prosciutto tuscan. For dessert or afternoon snack, we take ice cream (ice cream) until we couldn't take it anymore and bought it taglio pizzas (slice of pizza) in the many snack bars that exist, which went down really well and were super cheap (average of 2 euros).
I found the prices relatively cheap, especially when compared to Dublin prices. The average price of our meals with a bottle of wine It was 40 euros. Not bad, right? That's what we pay in Dublin for meals without drinks. 🙁
Italian Wines
Oh, what a country to have good wine, you know… Honestly, I think I liked Italian wines more than French ones, but I'm not one expert on this subject. We tried everything, especially the most famous ones from each region and our favorite was the Brunello di Montalcino. There are several of these and the prices vary a lot, so we chose one for 30 euros which went down very, very well.
The cool thing about Italy is that most restaurants, just like in France, offer house wine (house wine) and they are usually great value for money, coming in glass bottles with no labels. Please take advantage of this opportunity! We drank so much that we were actually nauseous by the end of the trip.
Tickets purchased in advance
We followed the recommendations of my friend and our travel guide and bought tickets for the main attractions of the cities we visited in advance, to avoid the queues, which are really huge.
We almost bought the ROMA CARD at the tourist center, because it gives you special queues, discounts on attractions and even 2 of them are free. When we went to buy it, the lady told us that some museums were free and when we did the math, we didn't think it was worth buying. TIP: Take a look on this site First, check if it’s worth it for you and also look for this type of card for other cities you’re visiting. I know it’s available in Florence, Cinque Terre, etc., but we didn’t buy any. It wasn’t worth it for us, but maybe it’s worth it for you…
Well, these are the attractions we bought in advance and that were really worth it:
Pomegranate
- Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill – we bought it at Rome Museum, which is close to Piazza Navona, and we paid 28 euros for the 2 of us, with the 4 euro fee. We didn't have to wait in line at all and were shocked by the line of people who didn't have tickets.
Vatican
- Vatican Museum – we bought the ticket at official website and we recommend that you do the same, to avoid extra fees. They send you the ticket by email and you have to take it printed out with you. When you buy it, you have to choose the day and time, and on the day of the visit, you have to be careful, because they don't let you in later. We paid 40 euros for the two of us, with a fee of 8 euros, and we booked for 1 pm. There really is a lot to see, but we focused on the main works and stayed there for about 3 hours. Some people spend the whole day. The line of people who didn't have tickets was around the block. Don't be so lazy...
Florence
- Academy Gallery and Uffizi Gallery – we bought tickets for the main galleries in Florence also at official website. We paid 16.50 per person for each of them and we had to schedule a date and time as well. We got our tickets at an office in front of the entrance to the Galleria dell'Accademia, but to our surprise, the scheduled time was not valid. We got in a special line, but it was also huge, with people with all possible schedules. There was absolutely no control. What I found worst was that the people who were in line to buy tickets were able to go straight in, so they often spent less time in line than I did, who already had the ticket! Italian inefficiency, as Celo says. Oh, and the Galleria dell'Accademia is much smaller than the Uffizi and you can see both on the same day, unless you really appreciate art and want to read every detail.
Our trip in photos
Want to know more about this TRIP? See the posts below:
- Italy – Rome, Tuscany, Bologna and Cinque Terre (14 days -SUMMARY)
- Italy – Rome and Vatican (4 days)
- Italy – Bologna (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Summary (4 days)
- Italy – Tuscany – San Gimignano and Volterra (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Florence (2 days)
- Italy – Tuscany – Lucca (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Monteriggioni and Siena (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Montepulciano and Cortona (1 day)
- Italy – Tuscany – Pisa (1 day)
- Italy – Cinque Terre (2 days)
If you want to know more about our other trips around Italy, see below:
