I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I have dreamed about traveling in Europe since I could remember.  There is something mystical, magical, and magnificent about the beautiful countryside, historical cities, and you know…CASTLES!!!

Well after my husband and I graduated college, we began talking about doing some serious traveling before we started a family.  Finally after much deliberation and MANY pro and con lists, we landed on spending 2 weeks in Italy.  Thoughts of walking the Vatican museums and seeing some of the most beautiful Renaissance cities in existence made the little art history nerd inside of me giddy!  And so began the planning…

There seemed to be two schools of thought when it came to European travel.  It was either the travel book’s perfect itinerary that seemed to have an endless budget, or we saw the “Backpacker’s Guide” to sketchy flights, hostels, and no sightseeing excursions. This of course defeats some of the purpose of the trip in the first place!  I wanted tips for the in-between traveler, someone who wanted to save money whenever possible but still wanted to take a few tours and wanted a decent place to stay.  Apparently it didn’t exist, so I spent months combing Pinterest and Trip Advisor for the best itineraries and places to stay.  Let’s break down some of the basics.

Time of Year to Travel

If at all possible, travel in the off seasons.  Obviously summer will be the most busy followed by any major Roman Catholic holidays (Vatican City is the head of the Catholic Church after all!).  This doesn’t mean go when the weather is yucky, we chose to go in early September.  The weather was perfect sitting anywhere from 70º-82º F most days, plus bonus day off with Labor Day!  Something to keep in mind if you do choose to go in the summer, it is very warm and most Italians don’t use air conditioning so be prepared and plan ahead!  Something else to keep in mind is that most Europeans vacation in August, so be prepared for more people, longer wait times, and less availability.  Cooler seasons like October-February are significantly cheaper but dealing with weather and limited tour hours comes with the package.

Where to Stay

Our view from the downtown apartment 🙂

We found that most of the time, renting an apartment was cheaper than getting a hotel room, and it would come with a kitchen which opened up the option for us to cook if we chose to do so.  Searching on Trip advisor was very helpful and gave us a lot of information on the areas we were looking for accommodations.  We aimed to stay as close to the sites as possible so we could eliminate the need to spend money on taxis.  We tried to base ourselves in a bigger city to give us to option of doing a day trip to some of the sights in cities nearby.  For example, it was cheaper to rent an apartment in Rome for an entire week with day trips here or there instead of packing up and going to stay in each town you want to visit.  There were a few exceptions where we had to go with a hotel because apartments would require a minimum of 3 or 4 nights and we were only staying 2 nights, but for the most part apartments were the way to go!

Getting Around

One of the things that made us nervous was the thought of driving through a country without speaking the language AND driving without knowing the traffic laws.  It seemed like a bad combination so we looked into other options.  We chose to use the train system and let me tell you, it was AWESOME!  We could hop on a train and go to basically any city that we wanted to reach, plus we could pay a bit extra and get on one of the bullet trains that run upwards of 120 MPH!

We purchased a Eurail pass which cost us about $250 per person for 8 “days of travel”.  This meant that we were able to have 8 separate days that we could use the train system.  They don’t have to be 8 consecutive days in a row and it is a pass for the entire day.  So for example, you can jump on the train from Florence to Pisa, visit Pisa and travel back to Florence no problem.  Just make sure you validate your pass before you hop on the train.  Which just means fill in the date so the conductor knows that you have marked the day on your pass.  They may also ask for your passport so have it ready.

The other option that I would highly recommend looking into would be using the public transportation system wherever you are staying.  Rome had a fantastic subway system that will connect you to basically all of the major sites and is MUCH cheaper than hiring a taxi.

Planning Excursions and Tours

Boboli Gardens on the free admission day 🙂

The first thing to remember is knowing that you can’t see and do everything.  Sean and I discussed a few things that we knew we didn’t want to miss out on, a couple activities that would be budget pending, and a few that we said we would be willing to let go.  My advice would be to choose a few select tours to invest in.  We saw and did TONS of stuff, but we only paid for 5 tours…the rest were either free or was simply exploring the city.  Plan ahead and book your tours early, waiting in line for hours wastes time that you could be exploring :).  I highly recommend using viator.com.  You can compare different tours, read reviews, and purchase your tickets all at once which meant keeping everything organized!  Also figure out when certain events are free, we got into many areas free of charge because it was public admission day!

Planning your Itinerary

Exploring the city is free!

Once you pick your destination, dividing your time and planning a practical travel flow to maximize your sightseeing while still relaxing and experiencing the culture around you is the biggest puzzle of the entire trip.  We narrowed our dream itinerary down to spending time in Rome, Florence, Venice, Verona, Amalfi, and Cinque Terre with the possibility to travel to Tivoli or Assisi.  We found out that flying in and out of the same airport is the cheapest option most of the time so we knew that we needed to begin and end in the same city.  Rome was the cheapest option and we knew that our travel back home would need to be as simple as possible…we didn’t want any chance of missed trains ;).

We originally had 15 days to work with, but only ended up with about 13.5 due to flight cancellations.  So once we landed in Rome, we purchased tickets for the Leonardo Express to Termini Station and from Termini Station we had bullet train tickets to Florence.  We chose Florence as one of our base cities so we had planned for about 2 full days there along with a day trip to the Cinque Terre.  From Florence we traveled to Verona and stayed overnight on our way to Venice.  We spent roughly 2 days in Venice and from there we went back to Rome for almost a full week.  While we were in Rome we ended up only doing an overnight trip to Amalfi since we were ready to take it easy, but there was still PLENTY to do and see in Rome.