Discount Travel in Europe: Touring Italy’s Finest Cities, Including Venice, Florence and Rome

The Trip – I had been spoiled by my past travel experiences, not spoiled in terms of luxury, but spoiled in terms of expense. I had lived and traveled in South America when the cost of living was dirt cheap. Now, for my fortieth birthday, my husband and I were going to visit Europe, in particular, Italy for the first time. After 10 years of virtual house arrest, in the form of 9 year old twin boys and a 6 year old boys, we had finally found someone crazy enough, oops… I mean KIND enough to take care of our boys for a week. Before she came to her senses, I hoped to quickly plan a trip but experienced a bit of sticker shock. After a decade with very little “me” time, I was ready to splurge but still couldn’t bring myself to pay some of the rates, $300 a night for a Best Western in Venice???? Was it possible to plan a discount trip in Italy, with a weak dollar and still have a great time?

Flying- For starters, we were using frequent flier tickets. I know many of you, who don’t travel for business are thinking that there is no way you would ever earn enough miles to take a trip, it really isn’t the case. We use our credit card for everything, gas, groceries, etc. but we pay it off each month. If you check the credit card offers, you will see that you often get a big chunk of miles when you open a credit card account and keep it for a set period. You also get miles when you refer someone else. You and your spouse basically need to get on a schedule where you open one credit card, keep it for a year, then close the account, refer your spouse (getting the referee bonus miles) then let the spouse get the introductory offer. Long distance and cell phone companies, mortgage companies, and moving companies participate in credit card partner offers. Purchasing groceries at certain chains and eating out at select restaurants can earn double miles. Visit the specific airline website and learn about the different offers. It is also important to remember that you can “gift” miles to others, so even if you aren’t earning the bulk of miles on one card, you can pool them over to another account. In fact, if you trust your siblings, you can even set up an arrangement where your trade off kids and mileage awards every couple of years. The miles really do add up more quickly than you might realize. Our two plane tickets to Europe cost $160 in taxes and fees while the lowest rate I could find for tickets in late April, with a two month advance purchase was $1,500 to London and $1,900 to Rome.

Get to a Hub – The airline that we had accumulated our awards on, flew to Europe but didn’t offer direct flights to Rome. The airline could fly you to Rome via a partner airline, but that meant limited, and in our case, no availability. But, we could get a flight as far as London. London and Frankfurt are hub airports and you can often fly cheaply from there to other destinations in Europe. So don’t just check your final destination in Europe, check the hubs. If you don’t have frequent flier tickets, search for cheap fares via www.travelocity.com or www.orbitz.com, and indicate that your travel dates are flexible. Leaving even a few days earlier or later can result in massive savings. Consider departing from other U.S. cities, for example New York and Boston sometimes offer incredible low rates to London, I’ve seen $300 NY/London Roundtrip fares, if you can get a cheap domestic flight to a U.S. hub you could still save.

If you can get to a European hub, your low cost options increase greatly. In 1992, the European Open Skies Treaty was enacted which essential de-regulated airline travel in Europe. There are now over 60 regional airlines, many of which offer bargain airfares to European cities. When I originally researched fares from London to Italy, I thought I’d found a deal on Travelocity; Alitalia, had $82 roundtrip flights from Heathrow to Rome, excluding tax and fees. But with taxes and fees the roundtrip fare jumped to $252, and when I tried to go into one city, and out of another it jumped up to $540 per ticket, or 1080 for 2 adults. That’s when I discovered Ryan Air, www.ryanair.com a low cost British carrier. Ryan Air doesn’t fly out of Heathrow Airport, but they do fly to various London area airports like Gatewick, Stanstead, and Luton. We flew Ryan Air from Stanstead to Venice and then from Rome back to Stanstead and the fare for 2, roundtrip was $196. Stanstead is a clean new airport, with lots of dining and duty free shopping options. The Ryan Air website offers instructions on transit between major airports and it’s non-hub airports. In our case we took a National Express motorcoach, www.nationalexpress.com which takes about 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes depending upon the time of day. The bus leaves from the central bus station at Heathrow, a long walk underground through the terminal but clearly marked. There is a subway option, which we tried on our return but it involves transfers and is not very convenient or as timely, I’d stick with the motorcoach. The roundtrip fare to Stanstead for two was $97. So our total for airfare and transfers for two people was $293, and the same flight on a major airline would have been nearly $1,100.

Three of the most popular European regional carriers are Ryan Air, www.ryanair.com Easy Jet www.easyjet.com and Virgin Express www.virgin-express.com. The regional carriers don’t always fly out of hub airports so you need to factor in transfers, but if you are interested in seeing some more out of the way European locations, for example, Eastern European countries, this may be an advantage. The airlines are often strict about check in times and may limit luggage sizes and weights, so plan accordingly. There are several sites that give you the rundown on European regional carriers, www.attitudetravel.com; www.flycheapo.com; www.euroflights.info; www.lowcostairlines.org; www.routehunter.com.

Air and Easy Jet, www.easyjet.com have numerous flights out of Stanstead which is a clean, new airport with great food options and tons of duty free shopping. The fare on Ryan Air for 2 adults flying into Venice and out of Rome was $196. Both Ryan Air and Easy Jet fly to numerous locations throughout Europe and also offer affiliated hotels and travel planning options. Since they don’t fly into the main international airports, they may be an even better option for someone who wants to get to a more out of the way destination, especially Eastern European locales.

Packing – Changing airports in London and our planned Italian itinerary meant traveling light which was a new experience for me. We purchased carry on size luggage with wheels that were also convertible to a backpack. A smaller day backpack zipped onto the front and could be unattached as necessary. We were able to carry on both bags on our cross Atlantic flight but needed to check the main bag on the regional European flights. When we saw other tourists in Venice who had to hire water taxi porters just to get their bags to the hotel or the train, I was glad we had opted to travel light. Try Sierra Trading Post www.sierratradingpost.com or Campmor www.campmor.com for good deals on travel luggage, shoes and travel security items.

Lodging – Americans may have cut back on European travel due to the weak dollar but with cheap European fares, plenty of Europeans, Japanese and even Chinese travelers are filling the gap so there are no deals on lodging. Unless you no where to look. Use the hotel websites as a starting point but to find the best discount hotel deals in Italy, contact the hotels directly to book your room. At age 40, I don’t fit in with the youth hostel crowd, but I also didn’t want to spend $300 or more a night on a hotel that I didn’t plan to spend much time in. In Italy each night you are likely to be exhausted from touring, filled with wine or ideally both. I wanted lodging that was clean, safe and centrally located, but I didn’t care about the thread count of the sheets.

The solution.. Get thee to a nunnery!! The American Catholic church in Rome, www.saintsusanna.com offers tips for American travelers including a listing of churches in Rome and a few in other Italian cities that will take in boarders. You need to comply with some policies, such as a curfew. The convents welcome families, married couples and non-cohabitating singles, you need to be quiet and respectable but you need not be Catholic. The rates include breakfast and your proceeds from your stay support the religious house and it’s ministry projects, such as mission work in Africa. If you think about, if you stay at a Hilton, you may be subsidizing the purchase of outfits for Paris Hilton or her dog, so there is some added benefit of doing a convent stay!! In Venice we had a 1:30 curfew, in Rome it was 11:00, but after full days of touring I doubt we could have stayed up past 11:00 if we wanted to. If you don’t think you can comply with the policies, than a convent stay probably isn’t for you.. And I imagine if push came to shove and you came in drunk and rowdy the Italian police would certainly side with the nuns. We rotated our convent stays with hotel stays so we could have a late night if we wanted to. The convent stays really ended up being the best deals of our trip, the rooms were immaculately clean, the “sisters” were friendly and the locations couldn’t have been better.

Venice – Our Ryan Air flight arrived at Treviso airport, after exiting baggage claim and customs there is a counter to buy motorcoach tickets into Venice, the buses departure times coordinate with Ryan Air flight arrivals. For $11.50 we brought two one way bus tickets and were also able to pick up our 24 hour Venice water taxi passes for $27. The trip into Venice really wasn’t an inconvenience as you got to see some of the country side, and at the last stop, after about a hour and 10 minute ride, we walked less than a block right onto the water taxi. Venice has no cars, the canals are the highways. The Vaporetto is a large boat which is the equivalent of Venice’s public “bus” system, it has outside seating and is easy and frequent. Both private water taxis and gondolas are really expensive, an evening gondola ride with music can run a couple of hundred dollars. For some people it is a must do experience, our best experience was taking the water taxi away from the touristy area and then getting off and walking and then hopping back on. Lodging was at a convent, or guest house the Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, www.donorione-venezia.it located near the Accademia Vaporetto stop. We paid $140 for a sparkling clean room with two single beds, a clean private bathroom and a great breakfast; this was a true bargain in pricey Venice.

Take time to explore some less touristy areas of Venice, in Italy, you don’t see the real Italy until you see clothes hanging out on a clothes line. St. Marks is beautiful, but quite frankly, I don’t get the whole pigeon thing. You pay for feed and then birds land on you and you hope they don’t take a crap, seems kind of gross, while the sitting in cute out of the way piazzas and watching local children play was really charming. We arrived late in the afternoon the first night, visited St. Marks Square then had pizza at Pizzaria Accademia Foscarini before doing our evening Vaporetto tour. The pizza wasn’t a cost savings measure we were just too tired to do the slow food thing. The next morning we woke up really early, a time change thing, not planned, and visited the Doge Palace and St. Marks. The Doge palace admission is covered by a 4 museum pass $14 a person, if you are holding a pass you can bypass the entrance line, buy one the night before if you can or buy it at the Correr Museum across the square then walk into the Doge Palace prepaid entrance. We only visited one of the four museums as our schedule didn’t allow for more, then we took the Vaporetto, still covered under our 24 hour pass to the train station. Then it was onto Florence

Florence- There are various trains in Italy, the quickest being the ES or EuroStar. While we had saved money in other areas, we decided that we didn’t really have time to take the slow train and took the quickest option between Venice and Florence and traveled first class. Once again the transit was really rather pleasant as it gave us a chance to see the Italian countryside. I tried booking tickets directly through the TrenItalia website with no luck. The website has an English language version and directs you to create an account before buying tickets, however, though they indicate that they will be e-mailing you an account confirmation and password it never arrives. When you try to re-enter your e-mail info and create an account it indicates that your account already exists. I would think that this was a fluke but it happened to another American we met on the train. Use www.Trenitalia.com to research train schedule options and then buy tickets on Travelocity. First class train tickets one way for 2 people, from Venice to Florence were $100 and from Florence to Rome were $108.

In Florence, we went with a Rick Steves pick, Hotel Maxim, www.hotelmaximfirenze.it, $110 a night including breakfast, for a double bed with private bath. The rooms were clean, the lodging itself was functional but most importantly was in an outstanding location, a 10 minute walk from the train station is was also just a stone’s throw from the Duomo and a short walk to the Uffizzi gallery. The must see sights in Florence are very convenient which is good, but also means the area can be congested. If we had more time I would love to explore the area surrounding Florence, but for a quick taste of Renaissance history and culture, Florence is a must see stop. Before you leave do some reading on the Medici family, a cross between the Kennedys and the Corleone families. The Duomo church is beautiful by itself but even more intriguing when you realize that there was an assassination attempt on two Medici brothers in the church on Easter Sunday, one survived, one didn’t. The overpass type bridges around town were built for protection not for aesthetics.

Must see sights in Florence, are the Point Vecchio Bridge, the Uffizi Gallery, the Duomo Church and Michaelangelo’s David. You don’t need to be an art lover to appreciate a Da Vinci or a Raphael. However, I strongly, strongly recommend that you reserve for the Uffizi and David in advance. At the Uffizi there is a limit on the number of people who can enter the museum at a time, for 3 extra Euros, or roughly $3.85 you go to the front of the line at your assigned time. It is well worth it because even if you get there first thing in the morning, it is really three lines, people on line, groups with reservations and individuals with reservations, so you may still not move as the people who payed 3 Euros walk in ahead of you. Reservations can be made for free by calling 055-294-883 (Italian hours) or with an additional fee, www.weekendafirenze.it, your hotel may also book on your behalf, inquire when making your reservation.

Rome – In Rome we stayed in a double room with a shared bath at a convent, the Pontificio Istituto Masetre Pie Filippini, 19 Via Giuseppe Messori e-mail- Tertas@Virgilio.it, the rate for 2 nights was $132. We had a shared bath, which I was a bit nervous about but it was actually two rooms sharing two shared baths, one male, one female right across the hall. The convent was in an ideal location, 5 to 10 minutes walk to St. Peters, right on the 64 bus line and in a cute neighborhood, with a gated entrance on a private road. Our private balcony faced an ancient wall with a park on top and when we were awakened by birds chirping I couldn’t believe we were in a city. Sacrificing a private bath was worth it for the location, 5 minutes walk and we were in St. Peter’s Square. As we were learning with convent stays, the lodgings were immaculate though sparse, but quiet and the sisters were incredibly gracious.

We either walked or used the buses for transportation, the bus fare was only 1 Euro or $1.30 for 75 minutes of transit time. This wasn’t really a cost savings measure as much as convenience, taxis pick up only at taxi stands and it was just easier to grab a bus then find a stand and wait for a taxi. Restaurants will call a taxi for you after dinner, but we found walking in Rome at night to be safe and pleasant. Turns out we had arrived in Rome on a holiday weekend, which was a bit shocking as I had purposely booked the trip after Easter weekend (long weekend) and the next weekend, which had a Monday holiday and still hit another Monday holiday on the third long weekend in a row. Oddly enough, Italy was celebrating Liberation Day, which is the day that the Allies liberated countries that had fought against Nazi Germany (and Italy), but Italians consider themselves to have been liberated and celebrate. I think Italy would co-opt any holiday that would result in a long weekend, they are filled with a love of life but when you go to Rome in the Spring and Summer you are usually meeting other Italian tourists as many Romans head for the coast.

In Rome we spent one day doing the Vatican area, St. Peter’s is awe inspiring but I suggest getting there when they open to avoid the crowds. We also visited the Vatican museum, the only thing more overwhelming than the treasures it contains is the length of the entrance line. The entrance cost is $15.50, the cost of a guided tour is an additional $12.80, or $56.40 for two. The tour enables you to bypass the line and entire at your appointed tour time.. BOOK the tour, visit www.vatican.va. We didn’t book in advance but were approached by someone who offered to let us buy into a tour for 80 Euros or about $102-… yes, it is a huge mark-up but given that it was starting to rain and we were miles from the entrance it was a worthwhile investment. We also visited the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps , followed by dinner at Ostaria Da Giovanni ar Galletto, Piazza Farnese near Campo de’ Fiori. On the following day we did the Colosseum and Forum tours, we booked a tour in advance through Roman Odyssey www.romanodyssey.com. The guide was knowledgeable and enthusiastic but best of all the tour size is limited to 15 people or less. While you need a tour at the Vatican museum mostly to cut in line, you really do need a tour at the Colosseum area if you want to have the ruins put in perspective, the tour cost was $64, plus the $26 admission cost. I would definitely take the time to visit the Palatine Hill area, it is far less crowded and gives you a great view of Rome. We also walked over to the San Giovanni in Laterano church which was well worth the trip.

We did a ton of walking, decent shoes with a thick sole are a must as the cobblestones will take a toll on your feet, but we also took time for lunch breaks, gelato breaks and had a great, long dinner each night.

Our last night in Rome we moved to a hotel recommended by the Ryan Air website, Hotel Dany in Ciampino because we had a flight back to London at 6:00 am. At $110, it is only about 15 Euros and 10 to 15 minutes to the airport, but since the airport was really only about a 30 to 40 Euro fare directly to the airport, we probably should have just woken up ungodly early for our flight, or taken a later flight but we were trying to make a mid day flight out of London. Hotel Dany was clean and functional, but we were booked into a room next to the elevators and stairs and between marble floors and arriving airport passengers, it was as loud as if we had just slept in the airport itself. I’ve been to concerts where the sound didn’t conduct as well as it did at this Hotel.

Eating- Breakfasts at the hotel really consisted of a croissant and coffee, maybe a bowl of cereal, usually we just grabbed something to go. Then mid day, we would have a cold beverage and an incredible pastry, to find the best local places to grab a bite, listen for Italian only being spoken, also in Venice find the place where the gondoliers are eating and in Rome look for Carbeneri, in Rome for Carabiniere to find the best places to eat. For lunch we would get pizza or a panini and a cold drink to go or “da portar via” – for the road. The reason for getting food to go really wasn’t intended to be a cost savings measure, though it was, in Italy meals are made to be enjoyed and are usually slow and most days we didn’t have time for slow. We would take food to go and then enjoy a piazza or sit by the water in Venice. We probably averaged about $25 per day on treats, lunches, drinks or gelato. By dinner time things were usually closing and we were getting worn out so we didn’t skimp on dinner. The first night in Venice we just did pizza because we were tired, but it was good pizza, in Florence we had a somewhat forgettable meal, though it was in a great location for people watching, we should have walked a bit further and gotten away from the touristy area. In Rome, we had some of the best meals, not just of the trip but maybe of my life. We ate two nights at a restaurant near the convent, Ristorante Perdincibacco, 89 Via Dell Fornaci. Each of the meals was in the $60 to $70 range, but that was for outstanding meals that included multiple courses with wine or beer. By the way a glass of house wine is cheaper than a coke in Rome, so feel free to indulge.

The Budget – In summary, we did three great Italian cities in about 7 days, 2 of which were largely travel days. While we certainly saved on airfare and lodging, I never felt like we were on a budget, in fact after those two large savings we really didn’t look at the price tags for any of our other expenditures, we saw all the sights we most wanted to see and ate and drank until we were stuffed. We really didn’t spend anything on shopping or trinkets, but this was more of a matter of timing than budgeting. The sights were incredible and it was truly a feast for the eyes and mind. Our total budget was $2,080, or about $1,040 per person. However, if you take into account that we still would have had to eat and pay for gas if we had stayed at home, I think you could easily say that we did the Grand Tour for a Grand each.

The breakdown is as follows-

Transport- $774
Lodging- $541
Meals- $488
Sights- $252
Souvenirs- $25
GRAND TOTAL- $2,080.00

If we had paid for our plan tickets direct to Rome, I think we would have paid at least $1,600. If we had booked hotels via web booking services I think we would have paid at least $250 per hotel, per night. Our fixed costs would already have been $3,450, add in our train costs, museums, food and a flight back from Venice to Rome and the trip could easily have cost $4,478.