Budget for Two

It's easier if you make it all apples or all oranges. We'll go for apples, so what you're asking is: 'Will $300 a day work if you snatch an average of about $125 out for hotels - - leaving you $175 for the rest? Right? What we don't know is what 'travel' means. Milan to Bari? Florence to Venice? A private driver from Genoa to Taranto? Just subway tickets in Rome? You've got to total those up and subtract their average from the daily left-over above. Purchases is equally ambigious. Antique furniture? T-shirts? Now we're down to grub. How high on the hog do you want to eat? There's no good answer. We can do the whole mess on two hundred bucks a day if we stay out of Venice. But we tend to stay in cheaper digs. If we scaled our food costs to your hotel costs, three hundred a day would start to get tight, and we've already bought all the stuff we need.

The two things you probably have the most control over are travel and dining costs. You can easily do it on 300/day for two, but you'll need to set your priorities. If you want 3 meals a day in nice cafes/restaurants, it probably won't work, but there are lots of options for meals for a few Euro (pizza places, ethnic eateries, fruit/veg stands and other markets). You can travel very cheaply if you use the trains and book tickets way ahead, but you'll lose some freedom since the tickets can't be changed or refunded. You don't mention admission fees, but do keep those in mind since they are fixed costs that can add up if you want to visit multiple sites each day (vs longer visits at one or two sites).

Of course, sorry! Our accommodations include breakfast. We will be picknicking for lunch and treating once in awhile for dinner. As for transportation we will be walking mainly, taking the train twice (venice to florence and rome to venice) and renting a car to drive through Tuscany for 3 days. Spending runs the gamut. I am willling to take money out if I fall in love with something expensive but am thinoing more like small artwork, pottery and scarves.