Central Italy & Cinque Terre | Italy | 2019
Matt - July 21, 2020
My partner and I visited central Italy in April 2019 for 11 days, spending time in Cinque Terre, Florence, Siena, Rome, and Vatican City. It was a great trip, with a mix of beautiful sites and delicious food. Our style is to explore by foot with an interest in overall scenery (architecture, art, nature), food, and getting a sense of what local life is like. It was a very memorable trip. You can find the full itinerary, and customize it, here. Below is a summary of the trip.
Cost Breakdown
The total cost was $2,579 for the two of us. That breakdown was approximately:
- Flights: $815
- Food: $650 (1-2 meals/day were grocery-based)
- Transit: $190 (trains, rental car, metro)
- Housing: $696 (Airbnbs)
- Fun: $210 (museums, tours)
- Miscellaneous: $18 (luggage storage)
Daily cost = $235 or $117.50/day per person
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Cinque Terre
Cinque Terre, days 2 and 3 of our trip, consists of five colorful coastal towns: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso al Mare. This was a very scenic part of our trip. Each town is very walkable, though not always wheelchair accessible. Going from town to town was easy with the train that came every 10-20 minutes, which was about $5/ride. A popular experience for visitors is to hike the trail from town to town, however, there have been erosion issues over several years along that trail that has not been repaired, so some towns are inaccessible by the trail. We were only able to hike from Monterosso to Vernazza and then to Corniglia. The rest was inaccessible, which was a bummer. But, what we did get to hike was great. Manarola and Vernazza were our favorites with standout vantage points. There seemed to be little to do outside of eating and sightseeing in this area, so the region generally felt very dependent on tourists for economic activity. It was fun to explore the towns off the touristy route and imagine what it was like living in the narrow and hilly residential areas.
Florence
Florence, days 4 and 5 of our trip, had a very international feel with what appeared to be a large population of study-abroad college students. There were many sites like bridges, statues, and beautiful architecture. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore design was nuts. One of our favorite experiences in Florence was Mercato Centrale, which had some very affordable and delicious takeaway food. The gnocchi plate and juicy pork sandwich stood out the most (I can’t remember the names, but if you’re walking around you’ll see the lines for each place). To be honest, two days was a good amount of time to see many of the main sites and eat well. We didn’t do any museums due to how crowded they were, so maybe add a day or two to do museums. I think the one museum I regret not going to is Galleria dell'Accademia, which is home to original Michelangelo sculptures like David.
Siena
Siena, day 6, was a day trip from Florence via bus. Similar to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo de Siena was incredible. We did an audio tour of the Santa Maria della Scala, medieval hospital converted to a museum, and this was pretty cool. A highlight for me was getting lost in the museum, because it is very large and multi-storied, and finding ourselves in what seemed like an underground prison/grave area with bones in the concrete. We couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be accessible or not because the area was mostly unlit, unclear how to navigate, and just creepy. So that was actually pretty fun. Nice open plaza to relax and people-watch was fun too.
Civita Di Bagnoregio
Civita Di Bagnoregio, day 7, was part of our second day trip out of Florence where we drove across the countryside from Florence to Bagnoregio. This was an absolute highlight of the trip. The countryside was gorgeous, composed of beautiful rolling hills. It felt like we found the Windows background. Bagnoregio, a commune built on top of a sheer-faced hill, is an incredible site as well. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in the US. The best part of it is probably the view from afar, but walking through the commune was cool as well and there are pretty views of the landscape from within.
Rome
Rome, days 8, 9 and 11 of our trip, was SO cool for the architecture and ruins. There was so much to see in Rome, it felt a lot like Paris in that you could spend a lot of time there and not run out of things to do. There is so much to walk to and see. Sights like the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain stood out as incredible. I will say we never really experienced good food in Rome as we did in Florence despite using the same sources to find places to eat, we were more often disappointed than impressed with the food in Rome. There was one place, which was far from the center of Rome and appeared to be a very local place known for cacio e pepe, that was absolutely terrible. It was so bad that we suspected they may have intentionally put an intolerable amount of pepper in our food because we were tourists. We had to dilute the pasta with as much bread as we could get and couldn’t believe how people could eat it if that actually was how it’s supposed to be.
Vatican City
Vatican City, day 10, is pretty unreal in how ornate it is. We did a guided tour, which was a great way to do it just for the sake of not getting lost. I don’t even remember if they allow visitors without a guided tour. There was so much incredible art. Seeing the original Michelangelo work in the Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing, though no photography was allowed. St. Peter's Basilica was also incredible, with so much attention to detail on every aspect of the interior. Every hallway seemed to be a floor-to-ceiling art expo.
Lessons Learned
- If you plan to rent a car, make sure you’re aware of the international license you must obtain and have printed out (very specifically) prior to getting your rental. This cost us a day by showing up for our online reservation and being denied for not having an international license. We had to scramble to order online and find a local place to print it exactly as required, then went back another day for the rental.
- Don’t use Google Maps or Tripadvisor for finding good food in Rome. This backfired on us multiple times and left us really disappointed.
- Make sure you have cash for the subway in Rome, which was the only place we found that didn’t accept cards. Was really frustrating.
- Don’t bother paying for the Giardino di Boboli in Florence. I think it was $10/person entrance fee and it was a big disappointment leaving us bummed about wasting that money.
Hope this helps to inspire some fun travel experiences as the world starts to open up!
