Italy on a Budget


For Andrea and Richard Farrow their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy needed to include stops to all the most beautiful locations and fit within a budget. ReidsGuides.com showed them the best ways to eat gelato in Rome, watch the sunrise in Venice, hike along ancient goat paths of Cinque Terre, see the volcanic ruins of Pompeii, and much more in a vacation that would cost about $4,500. Here are just two of the activities from the article TRIP COACH: ‘I’m Surprising My Wife With a Romantic Trip to Italy’ that they will enjoy.

“The Farrows’ first glimpse of Italy is in Rome, where their tight schedule allows for three days. Although they want to see the city’s big-name attractions, we told them not to get bogged down with a checklist of sights. There are a number of ways to enjoy Rome, such as window-shopping the fashion boutiques of Via dei Condotti, tasting the creamy gelato at Giolitti, and wasting an afternoon at a café on Piazza Navona (so that Andrea can engage in an activity that she had requested–“sitting outside and watching people as they move about their daily lives.”)

Wandering around the dusty streets, crumbling temples, vacant houses, intact bakeries, and amphitheater of Pompeii–all frozen in time (a.d. 79, to be precise) by the hot ash of a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius–should eat up five or six hours. Snack trucks lining the road to Pompeii provide a simple lunch, and gift shops sell excellent illustrated guides to help navigate the ruins. If they limit themselves to three hours in Pompeii, they may be able to squeeze in Herculaneum, the less crowded and in many ways more evocative victim of Vesuvius. They just need to hop out at the Ercolano stop on the return to Naples.”