Traveling Italy: travel tips for Italy

-- Traveling Italy: Travel tips for Italy --

When visiting Rome there are some things you just have to do. You have to eat pizza, you have to taste the Italian ice cream, and you simply have to visit the Vatican. Unfortunately you can become nauseous when discovering the long lines.

The Vatican museums are open from 8:30am-6pm, with the last entrance at 4pm. It's generally advised to skip the long lines in the morning and come at midday. All the tourists try to be smart and be there early in the morning, but the really smart ones come at 1-2 pm and breeze right in. The price? Tickets cost €14.

So what's the Vatican City? Home to Saint Peter's Basilica, the vast Vatican Museum collection, and Pope Benedict XXVI, the sacred city within a city will take up at least an afternoon of your time. It officially became a state in 1929, and does actually issue its own passports. The agreement with the Italian government, the Lateran Treaty, created the independent city-state, established Roman Catholicism as the official religion of Italy, and compensated the Vatican for its war losses.

The walled city contains Saint Peter's Basilica, the Pope's private apartments, and the Vatican Museum collection, one of the world's most comprehensive collections laid out thematically by culture and time period much like the Louvre. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is attached to the museums, although many people visit the sight for the chapel alone. Inside the Basilica are countless art masterpieces, including Michelangelo's Pietà, and Bernini's magnificent (though some would call it a bit overwrought) alter canopy. The Basilica is free of charge and open from 7am-7pm, whereas the Cupola (dome) coasts €7 in the elevator or €5 on foot. It is one of Rome's most remarkable panoramas and worth every cent.

Ken Sand writes for A Rome travel guide for people with a very limited budget.

-- Traveling Italy: Travel tips for Italy --

-- Traveling Italy: Travel tips for Italy --

This past spring, I took a weeklong trip to Italy all by myself. I visited Rome, Florence, and Pisa, and have decided to pass along some money-saving tips that I wish I had learned before I got there.

When to go

Summertime is hot, crowded, and expensive. Lines for major attractions are very long, and accommodations are pricier and harder to come by. I paid $550 for a roundtrip ticket from Seattle to Rome in late February / early March 2008, and I found that was a perfect time to be there. Sure there were tourists a plenty, but I did not wait in a single line to enter any attraction, and the weather was actually quite pleasant, at about 70 degrees most of the time.


Travel tips for Italy: How to get cheap Airline Tickets to Italy

The Internet has always worked for me, and there are several great sites out there that can snag you a great deal. For cheap airline tickets Hotwire.com is always my first choice, followed by onetravel.com, and vayama.com. Sidestep used to have a feature that allowed you to input your departure and arrival cities, and it would tell you what dates were the cheapest. Unfortunately, they have discontinued that valuable service.


Travel tips for Italy: Where to Stay

Once you have your cheap plane tickets, you need to decide what cities you are going to visit, how long you want to stay in each one, and where you are going to stay once you get there. I decided on three nights in Rome, and three nights in Florence, with a day trip from Florence to Pisa. As a financially challenged solo traveler, I decided to stay in youth hostels. Hotelscombined, Hostelbookers.com and hostelz.com are great sites that do not charge a booking fee (most others do). Once you've found a hostel that you are serious about, make sure to google it to read reviews from other sites. I also checked out several guidebooks from my local library, like Rick Steves, Let's Go, and The Rough Guide, to see what they had to say about my choice of hostel. I stayed at The Yellow in Rome, and Florence Youth Hostel in Florence. The Yellow was a basic dorm room with bathroom down the hall. It was a clean, safe place to crash at night. At the Florence Youth Hostel, I had my own big room and bathroom, for €40 for 3 nights!

You have your cheap plane ticket, you know what cities you're going to see, and you know where you're going to stay. Now you must decide what you want to see in each city, and form a basic plan of attack. Here's a list of attractions in each city, and some tips on how to save money and time while visiting them.

Travel tips for Rome Italy

If you are spending three or more days in Rome, you are going to want to buy a Roma Pass. The Roma Pass costs €20 and gets you free admission to your first two participating attractions, discounts at other Rome attractions, it allows you to bypass long ticket lines, PLUS it includes a three day transportation pass that is good on all buses, trams and subways in Rome (an €11 value!). The Roma Pass can be purchased at several locations throughout Rome. It can also be purchased online without a fee, but you must pick it up in Rome. To find out where to get it, and what attractions are covered, go to www.romapass.it/english/index.html.


I would also suggest taking one of those cheesy, tourist, hop-on, hop-off double-decker Rome tour buses, like City Sightseeing www.city-sightseeing.com, on at least one of your days in Rome. Attractions in Rome are really far from one another, public transportation is sparse and crowded, and unmarked streets can be confusing and cause you to get lost, frustrated, and exhausted. I spent so much time trying to find things, that I was utterly exhausted by the time I finally got there.


Travel tips for Italy and Rome: Must-see attractions:

The ancient Roman Colosseum. It's the quintessential landmark of Rome, and no trip to Rome is complete with out a visit. It is open May - end of September daily, 9 - 7:30; April and October, 9 - 6:30, and November until the end of March 9 - 4:30. Last admission is one hour before closing. Admission is €12 and includes a visit to the nearby Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. The Colosseum / Palatine Hill / Roman Forum admission is covered by the Roma Pass, which allows you to show up when you feel like it, and bypass the long line of ticket-buyers. The blue "B" line of Rome's Metropolitana subway system has a stop (Colosseo) directly across the street from the entrance.


The Roman Forum. Adjacent to the Colosseum, it's what left over of the Rome from Julius Caesar's time. Make sure to bring a guidebook like Rick Steves with you so that you know what you are looking at. The Temple of Julius Caesar, where Caesar was cremated is located in the Forum, and is kind of neat to see. The Forum used to be free, but now it is part of the Colosseum / Palatine Hill joint admission ticket covered by Roma Pass.

-- Travel tips for Italy: The Vatican --

The Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. No matter what your religious beliefs, (I am an atheist), you will be thoroughly impressed by all things Vatican. The Vatican Museum is four miles long, and filled with art from a dizzying array of time periods and cultures. It culminates with a visit to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 8:30 to 6 pm, and the last Sunday of the month it is open 8:30 to 12:30, admission being free on that day. Admission on all other days is €14, and is not covered by the Roma Pass.


To circumvent long lines, it is advisable to avoid arriving first thing in the morning, Wednesday mornings (when the Pope addresses the people at 10:30 in St. Peter's Square), and the last Sunday of the month when admission is free. I got there at 11:30 on a Friday and walked right in, even though the museum was so packed with school tour groups that I could barely move around. Non-flash photography is allowed in the Vatican Museums, but you are not allowed to take any pictures in the Sistine Chapel. To get to the Vatican Museum, take the orange "A" subway line to the Cipro stop, and follow the signs for a five-minute walk from the station to the museum.


St. Peter's Basilica. It's the mother of all churches, and whether you're a believer or not, you've got to go see it for the architecture alone. And it's free. To avoid long entrance lines, visit the Basilica after you finish with the Sistine Chapel. With your back to The Last Judgment, exit the Sistine Chapel to the back right corner (that is marked "Tour Groups Only") instead of the middle left exit that everyone else leaves from. That exit takes you back to the beginning of the Vatican Museum. The Vatican tour group exit takes you out to a courtyard where you will likely encounter a very long line of people. They are waiting to climb up to the top of the dome (cupola) of the Basilica.


If you do not wish to climb to the top, simply go to the other side of the line, where you will enter the grottos beneath the Basilica where many former Popes (including Pope John Paul II), royals, and emperors are buried. The exit of the grottos spits you out into a section of St. Peter's Square, where you simply follow the signs to the entrance to the Basilica. Once you enter the Basilica, go to the right to see Michelangelo's Pieta. Opening hours are 7 am to 7 pm. The dome is open 8 am to sunset and costs €4.

The Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is Rome's largest and most famous fountain, and is one of those things that you just have to see to believe. It's free and open 24/7. I suggest a visit in the daytime and at night. Make sure to toss a coin over your shoulder to ensure your return to Rome. It is not very accessible by public transportation. It is a long walk down windy unmarked streets from the Barberini metro stop. An easier way to get there is by taking bus 492 from Termini, and getting off at the second stop on Via del Tritone.


The Pantheon. This "Temple of all Gods" that was built in the 7th Century, is one of the best-preserved building of ancient Rome. The Roman Pantheon is open daily 9 am to 6 pm, and admission is free. It can be extremely difficult to find on your own due to the unmarked, windy, pedestrian streets that lead up to it. The metro doesn't go anywhere near it. Your best bet is to take a bus to Largo di Torre Argentina (40E, 64 or 492) and walk north a few blocks on Via di Torre Argentina or Via del Cestari.

Overrated, but go anyway:


Piazza Navona. This famous, unimpressive piazza is kind of near the Pantheon, so if you're in that neighborhood, you might as well stop by so that you can say that you've been there. There are a couple of cool fountains in the piazza, but other than that it is filled with tourists, and people trying to sell you paintings. I believe there were signs telling you how to get there by foot from the Pantheon.


The Spanish Steps. By far the biggest letdown of all the Roman sites is the Spanish Steps. But you gotta see 'em, and they are easy to get to, so hop on the "A" line of the Metro and get off at the Spagna stop. The Keats-Shelly Museum is at the foot of the steps, as is the Fontana della Barcaccia, and Via del Condotti, the most exclusive (i.e. expensive) shopping streets in Rome.

Campo de'Fiori. A fruit, vegetable and fish market south of Piazza Navona. I found it extremely tiny and under whelming, especially after experiencing Mercato Centrale and the San Lorenzo street markets of Florence. The market is open in the piazza Monday though Saturday, 7 to 1:30. It's another one of those attractions that is very hard to find. I finally found it by taking the 64 bus from Termini, getting off at C. So. Vittorio Emanuele (Navona), crossing the street, going left, and taking the first right.

-- Traveling Italy: Travel tips for Italy --

Travel tips for Italy: Florence

Florence is a beautiful, artistic, moderate-sized Tuscan city about an hour and-a-half train ride from Rome. Most of its sights are within walking distance of each other, that is if you are not too sore from trying to find everything by foot in Rome.


Don't Miss:

Santa Maria del Fiore (aka The Duomo). The Cathedral is the centerpiece of Florence and is open to the public Monday thorough Saturday, 10 to 5, and Sundays 1 to 5. Admission to the cathedral is free. It costs €6 if you want to climb to the top of the Duomo.

Baptistery. Located right next to the Duomo. Open daily 2 to 5:30. Admission €2. The Baptistery is more famous for its outside, in particular the east door, which is decorated with a replica of Ghiberti's The Gates of Paradise.


Accademia Museum. This is where the original version of Michelangelo's David lives. Open Tuesday though Saturday, 9 to 7, and Sunday 9 to 1. Admission €6.50. Reservation are strongly recommended, although I went on Sunday, March 2 at about 8:45 and walked right in with no line. The cheapest place to book tickets online is www.b-ticket.com. There is a €3 service fee to book in advance, and it is a timed-entry. Photography is not allowed.


Piazza della Signoria. Located next to the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi, the Piazza della Signoria is filled with amazing art and fountains. One of the two replicas of David resides in this piazza, as well as many other imposing statues such as the Rape of the Sabine Women, and yet another Neptune fountain. I stumbled upon this piazza at about 11:30 on a Sunday to encounter a festive parade of drummers, trumpeters, and flag twirlers. I'm not sure if it was a special occasion, or something they do every Sunday, but it was beautiful.


Santa Croce. Yet another church, but this one is special because it houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Ghiberti, and Dante Aligheri, among others. The guidebook I was using states that admission is €4, but there was no one collection admission when I was there, which was on a Sunday, late-morning, during a church service.


Mercato Centrale. Florence's indoor food market, which is a great place to pick up wine, pasta, and other various Tuscan goodies to bring home. Be sure to grab some food at Nerbone's, a food stand within the market. Mercato Central is open Monday though Friday, 7 to 2, Saturdays 7 to 12:15, and Sundays 3 to 5. Nerbone's is closed on Sundays, and oftentimes closes early on other days when they run out of food.

Mercato di San Lorenzo. It is difficult to miss this wonderful street market that sprawls through the heart of Florence. All sorts of jewelry, purses, leather, and tourist trinkets can be found here, and the market is open daily, 8 am until dark.


Piazzale Michelangelo. The best view of Florence, hands down. A second replica of Michelangelo's David sits in this Piazza that overlooks the entire city. It's a long, hard climb uphill, so it is better to take the bus (#12 or 13) from the city center.


If you have extra time:

Ponte Vecchio. Meaning "old bridge," the jewelry shops located here are criminally overpriced, and the bridge is flooded with tourists.

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. €6. 9 - 7:30, Sundays 9 - 1:40. Houses 7 of the 10 original panels from The Gates of Paradise (The other 3 are at the Seattle Art Museum), in addition to other artifacts spanning the history of Santa Maria del Fiore. Non-flash photography is allowed.


Uffizi. I am going to be flamed for this, but in my opinion, the Uffizi was the biggest waste of €10. If you're REALLY into renaissance art, then you might get something out of it, but boy, I sure didn't. I made several attempts to get in without waiting in a 2-hour line, and I was successful at about 5:30 on a Sunday, about an hour and a half before the Uffizi closes. Photography is not allowed.


Getting to Pisa from Florence

Pisa is an hour-long local train ride from Florence's Santa Maria Novella train station. Tickets are €5.40 each way, and can be purchased with cash or credit card from any of the self-serve kiosks at the station in Florence.


Once you get to Pisa Centrale train station, stop by the Tabacchi near the exit and buy 2 tickets for the bus (€0.95 each way). Exit the station, and cross the piazza to the bus stop underneath the entrance of the Jolly Hotel. Take the LAM Rosso bus to the Piazza dei Miracoli (most of the people on the bus will get off at that stop

The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Enter the piazza through the gate and take a moment to soak it all in. If you wish to climb to the top of the tower, follow the main path past all of the tourist street vendors until you come to the ticket office on the right. I visited on the first Monday in March, and was able to buy a ticket at the ticket office with no wait. If you are visiting during a heavy tourist season, it is advisable to purchase timed tickets online at www.opapisa.it. Tickets are €15 in person and €17 online.


Once you have your ticket, you must be at the meeting point next to the bookshop behind the cathedral and across from the tower about 10 minutes before your scheduled entrance to the tower. You are only allowed to bring cameras with you when you climb the tower, all other items, including purses, must be checked into lockers (that are manned by security) at the meeting point. There is no additional charge to check your belongings.


You must be at the entrance to the tower at your entrance time. Only a certain number of people are allowed to climb the tower at a time, and a tower employee climbs the tower with you to make sure that all rules are obeyed. The entire visit, including the climb up, down, and time at the top, last 30 minutes. The monuments and museums of Piazza dei Miracoli are open January and February, 10:00 to 5:00, March 9:00 to 6:00, April through September, 8:00 to 8:00, October, 9:00 to 7:00, November and December, 10:00 to 5:00, and December 25th to January 6th, 9:00 to 6:00.

-- Traveling Italy: Miscellaneous travel tips for Italy --

Getting to and from Fiumicino Airport

You've got two main options. The first being the Leonardo Express, a direct, fast and expensive (€11 each way) link to Termini (the main train station in Rome). The trip is 31 minutes, and trains leave Fiumicino at :05 and :35 past the hour, and Termini at :22 and :52 past the hour. The first departure from Fiumicino is at 6:35, and the last is at 11:35. The first departure from Termini is at 5:52, and the last is at 10:52.


You can also take the regional train FM1 for €5.50, get off at Roma Ostiense and take the "B" metro line to Termini. The FM1 train leaves the airport every 15 minutes starting at 5:57 and ending at 11:27. The first departure of the day from Ostiense is at 5:18, and the last one is at 10:48.

If you need to get to or from the airport when the trains aren't running, there is a lesser-known third option, the COTRAL bus. The bus leaves the airport at 1:15, 2:15, 3:30 and 5:00, and stops at Termini and Roma Tiburtina. It leaves Termini at :35, 1:20, 2:35 and 3:50. Tickets are €4.50 in advance and €7 when purchased on the bus. If you ask anyone at the Termini about the bus, you will get the runaround because people either don't know about it, or they will try and convince you to take the last train instead because they work for the train company. According to the website, www.cotralspa.it, tickets can be purchased at any Tabacchi. The bus stop at Termini is among the outer rim of the maze of bus stops in Piazza Cinquecento along Via Marsala.


Riding the Bus

Bus tickets are purchased before getting on the bus, and then you must stick the ticket into the validation machine once you board the bus. The ticket is then good for 75 minutes after it is validated, but you don't have to show the validated ticket to anyone unless they ask to see it. I was never once asked by anyone to see a bus ticket, but riding without a ticket is risky because the fines for doing so can be steep. But if the bus is crowded, and you're not going very far, and you don't have much money...


The train is a similar situation to the bus except you buy your ticket AND validate it before you get on board. I rode the train six times, and I was asked to see my ticket only twice.


Checking your luggage at the train stations

If you find yourself checking out of your hostel and still having a few hours to bum around the city before catching your train, then you might want to utilize the left luggage rooms in many of Italy's train stations. In Rome, the left luggage room is in the basement of Termini in the Termini Wing. It is open 6 am to midnight, and costs €3.80 for the first 5 hours, €0.60 per hour from the 6th hour to the 12th, and $.20 per hour for each hour after the 12th hour. Make sure that you will be able to claim your luggage before the office closes at midnight!


At the Santa Maria Novella station in Florence, the hours and rates of the left luggage room are the same as in Rome. The office is located on the ground floor of the station near the bus stops on Via Valfonda.


Using the Telephone

Do not use public payphones. I repeat, do not use public payphones. About 90 percent of them do not work, so they cannot be relied upon to call home or check voicemail messages. If you are staying in hostels, you are not going to have a phone in your room. Your best option is to visit one of the many internet cafes. Most of them have private phone booths and offer rates around €0.12/minute to the US. You just go in a booth and dial. The timer on the phone lets the cashier know how long you were on the phone, and you pay when you are done.

There are is an abundance of public drinking fountains throughout Rome, so you will only need to buy one bottle of water while you are there, and just refill the bottle at a fountain when you need more. Drinking fountains in Italy look different than they do in the US. If you see a random pipe sticking out of the ground with water pouring out of it, that's a drinking fountain (it took me a while to pick up on that). Most of the famous art fountains have drinkable water, although I would not drink out of the Trevi Fountain.


I did not see any fountains during my entire stay in Florence, so I had to buy water there. Make sure to buy bottled water in a supermarket and not a tabacchi or cafe, because you can get twice as much water for about half the price when you buy water in a grocery store like regular Italians do.


Using the Bathroom

The public bathroom situation in Italy can be kind of sketchy. Make sure you use the facilities in your hostel before you leave for the day, at every restaurant you eat in before you leave, and at any tourist attraction you visit. (Be warned that some bathrooms at tourist attractions charge to use their facilities. The Leaning Tower of Pisa bathrooms cost €0.20 to use.) Any other public restroom that you come across will likely be a) dirty, b) have no toilet paper, c) have no toilet seat / is just a hole in the ground or d) all of the above.


While I would never eat at a McDonald's in a foreign country, I was always grateful to stumble across them in Italy, because they have semi-tolerable restrooms that are open to everyone. Be sure to carry some handiwipes with you (can be purchased at any farmacia), because you never know when you will find yourself in a situation where you desperately need them, like I did when I went to a football match at Stadio Olimpico in Rome.


There you have it. I impart the wisdom I gained through my travels in hope that others can learn from my experience. Keep in mind that all times and prices are subject to change, so verify the information with the source before you get there. Buona fortuna! Happy travels!

by Heather Tinnerstet

-- Traveling Italy: Travel tips for Italy --