Food budget for 12-14 days in Italy?

Hi, Laurie Ann:

We just got back from about 5 weeks in Italy. Part of that time we were on tours, but we did spend most of it on our own. We were in Venice, Rome, Naples, Siena, and Bologna.

I didn't keep careful track of our food expenses, but in general: breakfast was covered by the hotel, and was usually generous. It was often a buffet, but even the two at which we ordered and were served, we could have as much as we wanted.

Dinners: We usually spent about €50 - €60 for dinner for the two of us. This would include one primo or secondo each; water and wine for both of us, dessert for Stan, and often coffee for both of us. Occasionally we had an appetizer, but not often.

Have you been to Italy? Do you know what primo and secondo mean? Usually, primo (literally "first") is a pasta or risotto dish. Seconded ("second") is meat, poultry, or fish. We would always have either a primo or a secondo each. If you order a pasta and your husband orders steak, the waiter will bring them both at the same time.

Another great idea is salads. The salads tend to be big, with varied ingredients, and are acceptable as a substitute for either primo or secondo. You can get a little green salad to go along with whatever else you have, but the bigger salads are a meal in themselves.

Lunch prices are all over the place. My favorite lunch is to go to a bakery and ask for a sandwich. They may be ready made, or can often be made to order. They are sometimes big enough to share, and are dirt cheap. Our cheapest lunch in Italy was €5: that was one big sandwich and 2 bottles of water. If you ask nicely, they'll cut the sandwich in half for you.

Restaurant lunches would range from about €20 to €50, depending on what we had. A light pasta or salad each, house wine, and water would run about €25 or so. A more substantial meal would, of course, cost more. And on days when we had a big lunch, we would often skip dinner.

Another bargain choice for lunch is a kebab shop. We had very good sandwiches there. Pricier than a bakery, but much cheaper than a restaurant. You might find pizza by the slice, as well. That's a real bargain!

To add to Jane's excellent suggestions, you can also pick up ready-made foods in most grocery stores to either picnic with or bring back to your room. Or, just get some bread and cheese and fruit for a great snack. That can help bring down the cost a bit.

Laurie Ann, its not much different cost-wise than planning for a vacation here in the US, where you are eating in restaurants more often than at home. You can find food at any price point you want, you just have to check menus before you go in to a place.

Ditto stan.
Another thing to consider is whether you will stay in hotels or apartments. We typically stay in apartments so we can make our own breakfast, which is a negligible cost of yogurt and fruit, etc. or we try to stay in a b&b with a great breakfast (I can't do cafe and pastry--I need protein). For lunch, we are often outdoors and take our own there too, as a long lunch is not our preference. At dinner, we then splurge on whatever we want, but the occasional pizza dinner balances out more decadent meals.
Seafood is usually the splurge for us.

Thanks everyone! This is our first trip to Italy (and our first trip overseas). I have read a bit about meals and am trying to learn how they work. We will mostly be staying in hotels, but might rent a place in Tuscany for a few days (not positive).

It's good to know that we can eat about the same as at home on vacation, that gives me a good idea to work with.

We do enjoy protein for breakfast so I hope we can find a place that provides that or if not, have an early lunch. Or at the minimum find a store that sells protein/breakfast bars to carry with us.

Hi Laurie, I find that my eating schedule is way off when we travel. The only meal we for sure do is Dinner, which is usually always about 60 Euro (As someone else mentioned...so weird no matter what we get dessert, drinks..always 60). We also need a protein packed breakfast, and I will only book hotels that include breakfast and there is usually hard boiled eggs, meats and cheeses and yogurt. When we stay in an apartment I can visit the local grocery store (always so fun) and get my protein breakfast to make.
Our daily budget is 125Euro.
One of my favorite things to do in Italy is stop at a little outdoor restaurant/bar and have an afternoon Spritz and and my husband likes exploring the Italian Beers, just something about drinking at 2PM that screams I am on vacation. No need to buy food, just the drinks is 100% ok, plus they usually serve a little snack with the drinks.
If your husband likes beef he cannot miss the Bisteca In Florence. Research it, they are known for it! The best steak he will ever have (according to my husband).

Larie Ann, I'm another one that needs protein at breakfast. I don't think we were in a single hotel in Italy this year that didn't have some kind of protein. There is almost always cheese and salami or ham - sometimes several of each, and hard boiled eggs are very common. In some hotels, you can boil them yourself to your liking!

At least one hotel at which we stayed would cook eggs to order as well, even though there was a generous buffet.