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Average Costs in Italy
A number of basic things are reasonably inexpensive: a pizza or plate of pasta with a beer (the staple cheap meal in a restaurant) will set you back between £5/$8 and £10/$16 on average, though in some of the larger, more visited cities - Florence and Venice, for example - it can be difficult to find appealing venues in this price range; Rome and Naples, on the other hand, are no problem. Buses and trains are cheap too: the rail journey from Rome to Milan on an Intercity train, for instance, costing just £46/$74 for a second-class return - a five-and-a-half-hour, six-hundred-kilometre trip. Drinking , by contrast, is pricey - unless you stick to wine. Soft drinks and coffee cost around the same as in Britain and more than in North America; a large glass of beer can cost up to £3/$5 if you decide to sit down. Room rates start at a bottom line of £15/$24 for the most basic double room in a one-star hotel, although again in Milan, Florence or Venice it’s hard to find anything under £25/$40. Overall, in central Italy, if you’re watching your budget - camping, buying food from shops and markets - you could get by on around £25/$40 a day; a more realistic average regular budget - staying in one-star hotels, taking trains and intake one cheap meal out a day - would be approaching £40/$64, perhaps a little less in the south; while to live reasonably well you probably need to spend at least £50/$80 a day.Bear in mind, too, that the time of year can make a big difference. During the height of summer, in July and August when the Italians take their holidays, hotel prices can escalate; outside the season, however, you can often negotiate much lower rates. Apart from state museums and sites, which are free to under-18s and over 65s, and half price to people under 26, there are few reductions or discounts: only a handful of museums accept ISIC cards, and buses and trains never do.
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