Rome on a Budget – is it Possible?

Making the Most of Rome

This was our first time in Europe.  Although we knew that the budget we worked with in Asia was never going to cut it in Europe, we needed to get the most out of Rome without breaking the bank.

If you want to work out how much you will spend in Rome, you need to first decide the amount of time you have and what you want to see.

How we did Rome

This blog is not going to be all about what we saw but rather how we managed to get around the top tourist destinations.  It’s about how much of a blow to our budget our 4 nights in Rome turned out to be and what NOT to do.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on each of the attractions as there are Wikipedia and thousands of blogs and videos on the history of each of the amazing destinations in Rome.  Just click on the link provided to take you to historical information on each location.

Location, Location, Location

Because we arrived quite late on the first night, this only meant that we had three full days in Rome.  We did not want to waste time on figuring out and waiting for Public Transport. The location of our accommodation was going to be the most important factor.

Trastevere

Our research kept coming up with an area called Trastevere.  This area seemed to tick all the boxes for us.

Trastevere is often referred to as a ‘real Roman neighbourhood’.  It is located on the west bank of the Tiber River.  There are still cobblestone streets, old doorways, arched passageways and flower-filled balconies.  It is certainly hard to take a bad photo here.

Within its maze of narrow streets and centuries-old piazzas (squares), the restaurants and cafe’s fill every nook and cranny and we could walk anywhere in the town and soak up the amazing Italian atmosphere.

But best of all, it is within walking distance to all the major tourist destinations.  There was no need for us to worry about the time and cost of transport to and from the central areas.

Accommodation

We stayed at  B&B Zen and Zoe.  It is owned and managed by a lovely young Italian couple and they are located right in the heart of Trastevere.  It was a great score.  We made the booking directly through their website rather than using one of our usual booking sites.

They have two B&B’s, one called Zoe and the other Zen.  It cost us  €69.50/$122NZ per night which included a basic continental breakfast.  NB: in Italy, there is also a nightly tax to pay which needs to be in cash and can differ in each location.  In Rome, it was €3.50/$6NZ each per night.

We arranged for them to collect us from the airport due to our late arrival into Rome (not to mention our two rather long flights to get there).  They charged us €40 which was still cheaper than a taxi which would have been around €80.

Get the Apps

Visit-A-City

Visitacity.com is a free app and it enables you to plan your trip with free itineraries, guides, activities and maps.

There is a lot of information on organised guided tours but some destinations have self-guided itineraries to follow.

You can input your accommodation and it will calculate how long it will take you to get to your first destination (either walking or transportation).  It also gives you a link to maps so you can find your way there.

We followed the 3 days suggested itinerary with a few changes here and there.  It tells you how long you can expect to spend at each attraction before moving onto the next one.

You can customise the itinerary, swap the days and add any additional destinations not already listed.

Basic information will come up on the history of each place and any other interesting information.  There is an audio guide but she sounded too much like a robot talking so we preferred not to listen to the guide.

Once you work out your itinerary, you save it to ‘My Plans’ and make sure it’s downloaded to your phone or device.  It is now ready to use offline.

Rick Steves Audio Guide

We had not really heard of Rick Steves before but he is very popular in Europe.  Rick has radio and TV shows and numerous travel guides.  He has established himself as one of the leading travel authorities when it comes to Europe.

There are three podcasts dedicated to Britain, France and Italy which leads you on walking tours of famous sites.

We both downloaded numerous Rick Steves Audio Tour options, not only for Rome but throughout Italy.

He directs you through the various locations and the audio guides are full of information and history.  You can pause, rewind or fast forward depending on how fast or slow you walk through the sites.

You select which ones you want and download them to your device.  Don’t forget your earplugs or headphones as you don’t want to be ‘one of those’ types of tourists that have their audio guide blaring for all to hear!!

How These Apps Save You Money

There are literally hundreds of options when it comes to organised tours of all the major attractions in Rome.

Not only can you spend loads of money on guided tours, but you also have the option to pay to hire an audio guide and headset at these attractions if you choose the self-guided option.

Having both these Apps saves you having to book a tour or hire an audio guide.

What You DO Need To Spend Money On

Skip the Line Tickets

Everything we read said to make sure you buy a ‘Skip the Line’ ticket to get into some of the attractions.  The lines to get in can be extremely long and sometimes you can wait a couple of hours to enter.

As we were in Italy during August, this is still the peak tourist time.  We certainly didn’t want to waste time standing in a queue (not to mention the heat at that time of the year).

We pre-purchased ‘Skip the Line’ tickets for the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel for €42/$74NZ for two. Click here for the link to find out more information.

We also chose to purchase ‘Skip the Line’ tickets for the Colosseum online.  The one entry will get you into the Roman Forum and Palatine hill as well. This cost us €28/$49NZ for both of us.  Click here for the link to find out more information.

I cannot recommend the ‘Skip the Line’ Tickets for these venues enough.  The queues were crazy long.  I thought that everyone would be on board with these tickets and we would need to queue to skip the line.  It appears not!  There were hundreds of people queueing to enter these venues and we were able to walk straight in with minimal waiting times through security screening.

Choose a Guided Tour Carefully

We researched the Guided Tours available and if we were going to spend any money on a Guided Tour, we wanted it to be to attractions that we couldn’t normally get to on our own.

We chose to book with Walks of Italy and picked their Crypts, Bones and Catacombs:  Underground Tour of Rome.  You cannot visit these sites on your own so it was a good choice.

Walks of Italy specialise in small group tours which is always an attractive option for us.  We were the only two on the tour so it was more like a private guided tour (bonus!).  We were taken underground to see one of Rome’s first underground Christian cemeteries which dates back 150 years before Christianity was legalized.

Next, we were taken to see ‘The Bone Chapel’.  This is a cemetery literally built from bones from some 4,000 Friars.  It’s not meant to be an eerie place but it was quite bizarre to see artwork made out of human bones.  There were also mummified bodies on display, thousands of years old, some still had facial hair!!

The final destination was a multi-layered Ancient Roman Temple/prison/Basilica.  It was built in the 10th century on the site of three temples dating back to the 1st century BC.

The tour lasted 3 hours and cost us €143/$253NZ for both of us.  This included our guide, entry fees and minivan transportation between sites.  The meeting and finishing points were both within walking distances to our accommodation so it was convenient to get to.

This was the most expensive activity we did in Rome but we considered it was money well spent and worth the extra expense to see an attraction not available to the general public.

Other Options Available

If you are doing your research into visiting Rome, you will most certainly come across information regarding the various transport cards available to purchase.

Because we did not need to use public transport in Rome, I’ve only included a brief summary of some options and a link to find out more.

Rome bus, tram & Metro Ticket Prices:

Ticket options Are:

• Standard Ticket: valid for one Metro ride or 100 minutes on all buses allowing transfers €1.50
• 24-hour ticket: valid for unlimited metro, bus, and train travel within Rome for 24 hours €7.00
• 48-hour ticket: €12.50
• 72-hour ticket: €18.00
• C.I.S (Weekly Ticket): valid for 7 calendar days – €24.00

Note: Public transportation is free for children under 10 years old.

For more in-depth coverage of ticketing and tips, click on the link here.

Omnia Card

This is a 3 Day pass hop-on hop-off Rome bus, public transport pass, Roma Pass & Vatican Card.  This will cost you €113 adult, €80 (6-9-year-olds).  For more information on the Omnia Card, click on the link here.

Roma Pass

There are two options if you wish to purchase a Roma Pass.

72 hour Pass: includes Metro, buses & trams, discounted entry on attractions and passes into 2 museums €38.50

48 hour Pass: includes all of the above except entry into 1 museum €28.00

Click on the link here for more information on the Roma Pass.

There are many more transport/attraction passes and options but these are the more popular.  It is best to do your own research to determine which one suits your budget and timeframe.  Just keep in mind that most of the attractions are all within walking distance and you would need to use the transport system quite a lot (at least 7 times) to make some of the passes worthwhile.

A Summary of Attractions We Visited

This is by no means a comprehensive list of things to see in Rome.  You would need at least a week to cover off more historic sites and attractions (and probably still not see them all).

Day One

St Peters Basilica, St Peters Square and St Peters Dome

We arrived at St Peters Square early (around 8 am) as we wanted to climb St Peters Dome.  There was only a small queue to get in at this time of the morning (we didn’t buy Skip The Line tickets).  We passed through security, bags x-rayed and we walked straight to the Dome.  It cost us €10.00 for the elevator ride +300 steps or it could have cost us €8.00 +520 steps.  Considering it was going to be a long walking day, we opted for the elevator and 300 steps.

It was a good call to head straight to the Dome to beat the crowds as this is not a place that you want to be crowded to truly be able to appreciate the view of Rome.

By the time we had visited the Dome, Square and Basilica, the queues to enter had quadrupled and stretched for 100’s of metres.

We used our Rick Steves audio guide as we wandered around the 3 venues listening to his comprehensive commentary as we went.  See the link above for more information on Rick Steves and St Peters.

 

Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel

As mentioned earlier, we had purchased ‘Skip the Line’ tickets online to enter the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel.  Thank goodness as the queue was horrendous!

Our booking time was 11.30am and we needed to be there 15 minutes beforehand.  We queued for about 5 minutes but nothing compared to the long, long queue waiting to go in.  They only allow so many people through at a time so we watched the line stay stationary for quite some time as they waited for people to exit.

Out of all the tourist destinations we visited in Rome, we found this one the hardest going.  Although the history and surroundings are just amazing, the crowds were almost suffocating.

There is only one route to follow through the museum and onto the Sistine Chapel so it does have a funnel effect.  You need to keep moving with the flow of tourists as you get swept along by the current of people.

We still managed to keep pace with Rick Steve’s Audio Guide and we did learn a lot about the history of this very famous location.

No photo’s or videos were allowed inside the Sistine Chapel but we will always remember the ambience and sight of this amazing feat by Michaelangelo.

Castel Sant Angelo

It was about a 45-minute walk to the Castel Sant Angelo (thanks to the Visitacity App). It was not a destination that we knew much about but it showed up as a point of interest to see.

Because of it’s close proximity to the Vatican, an 800-metre underground tunnel was built that connected the castle with the Vatican.  This was so that the Pope could escape in case he was ever in danger.  Back in the 1500’s, the Pope indeed used the fortress as a refuge.

There was a bit of a queue to enter but we persevered, paid our €30.00/$53NZ to enter to see what this castle had to offer.

Although the rooms weren’t as elaborately decorated and in quite an original condition, it was the view at the top of the castle that made the entry fee worthwhile.

Five storey’s high meant that the top open floor offered us panoramic views around Rome and Vatican City.  This was made even more impressive with the incoming impending thunderstorm.

Click on the link below to see a video of the highlights of our first day in Rome.

Day Two

The Pantheon

It was only a 20-minute walk from our accommodation to The Pantheon so we headed off there for our first destination of the day.

It was free to enter and we got there right on opening at 8.30am.  Because of this, we were not having to deal with loads of other tourists and we could wander around listening to our Rick Steve’s Audio Guide.

It is one of the best preserved of all ancient Roman buildings.  This is because it has been in continuous use throughout its history since the 7th century.

Piazza Venezia

According to our VisitaCity Itinerary, our next destination, Piazza Venezia was only a 15-minute walk away.  It is located almost in the ‘geometric centre’ of Rome.

There is no entry fee and no queues so we could wander around this massive structure rather easily.  We walked to the top to get a great view of the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill which was virtually right next door.

The Colosseum, The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill

As we had purchased ‘Skip the Line’ tickets for the Colosseum, we knew that this also included entry into The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.

Our allotted entry time into the Colosseum wasn’t until 1 pm so we headed to The Roman Forum first.

We showed our printed pass and entered straight away.  We weren’t too sure what to expect from The Roman Forum but we were blown away by the vast area that had been excavated and wandered around listening to Rick Steve’s Audio commentary.

The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum was where religious and public life in ancient Rome took place.  It is also the place where Ceasar was assassinated.  To stand and walk on the very ground that he and other great historical figures walked (such as Caligula) was surreal.

Palatine Hill

Palatine Hill loomed above The Roman Forum and we climbed the hill where ruins of ancient palaces and temples once stood and were the homes of emperors and kings.

We could also view Circus Maximus from the top of Palatine Hill.  The Circus was Rome’s largest venue for public games such as chariot races.  There is not much to see of the original venue but you can still see the racing oval where the chariots and horses would thunder down at break-neck speeds.  Today, it is the site of many music concerts and great legends such as Genisis and Bruce Springsteen have performed.

The Colosseum

It was nearly time for our entry to The Colosseum.  There were hundreds of people waiting in various queues to enter.  Once again there are strict regulations in place as to how many people can enter at any one time.  This means that the queues move even slower.

With our ‘Skip the Line’ ticket we were able to walk straight in.  Once again, we were surprised at the number of people who don’t pay the little bit extra to save hours of waiting times.

We walked around the Colosseum listened to Rick Steves Audio Guide as he told us all about the history and imagined Gladiators, prisoners and beasts who went to battle in these grounds.

Click on the link below for highlights of our second day in Rome.

Day Three

Jewish Quarter

I changed things around for our final day’s itinerary on VisitaCity as they had included a lot of museums and art galleries.  This just isn’t how we wanted to spend our last day so swapped it for a visit to the Jewish Quarter.

This was very close to our accommodation so it was easy to wander around the streets listening to Rick Steves Audio Guide.  We learnt about the history of the Jews and the impact wars have had on this settlement throughout the centuries.

Out of 7,000 resident Jews, about 2,000 were rounded up in a single day in 1943 and sent to concentration camps. Only 16 survived. Today, Rome is said to have less than 20,000 Jewish residents, only a few hundred of whom live in this quarter.

Piazza Navona

Next, our VisitaCity had us head towards Piazza Navona.  This is an elongated oval-shaped 15th century public square in the middle of suburbia.

It was initially used as a chariot racing and games stadium built in the 1st century AD.  Later in the 15th century, it turned into a marketplace and a venue for special events.

Today it is packed with trendy, expensive cafes and restaurants.  We spent some time wandering around the three fountains.  The most famous being the Fountain of the Four Rivers which was completed in 1651.  Once again Rick Steves walked us through the history and what each figure represented.

Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is the most photographed fountain in the world.  It is the largest Baroque fountain in the world.  It is situated at the junction of three roads (hence the name).

Legend has it that if you throw a coin into the fountain and make a wish to return to Rome, your wish will be granted.

Well, it would have been rude not to follow suit – and the hundreds of others around us agreed too.

Piazza di Spagna and Spanish Steps

Carrying on with our VistaCity Itinerary, it was a 10-minute walk to Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps.

The Piazza di Spagna is located at the base of the Spanish Steps.  It wasn’t anything startling but there was a fountain located in the centre.  It signifies where a boat did, in fact, get stranded in the square when the Tiber River flooded back in 1598.

We wandered the surrounding streets which boast to be Rome’s most elegant and glamorous streets with some extremely high-end names like Gucci, Prada and Valentino.

The 17th century Spanish Steps consists of 137 stairs signify peace between the Spanish and the French.  Apparently, the steps are one of the most romantic places in Rome and the widest staircase in Europe.

Walks of Italy – Crypts, Bones and Catacombs:  Underground Tour of Rome

It was time to meet up with our guide from Walks of Italy for our tour of the Underground Christian Cemeteries of Rome.  The link to this walk and a description is mentioned above.

Summary

Budget

We tried to keep our spending to a minimum but find the happy medium between enjoying everything Rome has to offer and not breaking the bank.

One of our biggest expenses would have been food.  In hindsight, we would not have changed anything as we believe that experiencing the way Italians dine is all part of the cultural experience.  They love their food and wine.  We wanted to be part of the culture and while we didn’t eat at any high-end restaurants, it was still more than what we would have normally spent – but oh so worth it!

What We Spent

Here is a breakdown of our expenses for the four nights/three days in Rome.

Accommodation including breakfast/Airport pick-up: €318/564NZ

Food/Alcohol: €343/$609

Tours/Entry Fees/Skip The Line Tickets: €261/$463NZ

Total Spent: €922/$1,637NZ

Be Prepared to Walk

My last bit of advise if you are coming to Rome is to wear comfortable footwear.  Our first day walking the streets of Rome was nearly the same as walking a half marathon.  My Garmen tracker showed the following km’s we walked.

• First Day:  18km
• Second Day: 17km
• Third Day: 16km

Dress Accordingly

Remember that there is a strict dress code for many of the destinations in Rome.  Keep your knees and shoulders covered.  They do enforce this upon entry.  It can be challenging to get the wardrobe right in the heat of the summer but you don’t want to be disappointed when you have stood in line and turned away at the entryway.

Unlike many of the temples in Asia, they do not offer the use of wraps in order to cover up so you need to bring a shawl or sarong if you are wearing shorts or a tank top/singlet.

Click on the link below for highlights of our final day in Rome.