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The Eternal City is as culturally rich as they come. A famous city filled with artistic and architectural masterpieces, classical ruins, and extravagant baroque churches and piazzas, Rome IS history defined. If you think the most famous city in Italy can only be visited by the rich and famous, the budgeting tips below should prove you wrong:

LODGING
Room accommodations on any trip can take the biggest chunk of your traveling money. Rome, as in almost every other tourist-friendly city in Europe, has clean HOSTEL locations in abundance. These are economical, and fine for the younger set that don't mind sharing space with many others. I wish the states had more accommodations such as these to offer families traveling across America. What Rome has that other European cities doesn't, is CONVENTS. Most convents offer an entire floor as boarding rooms for added income. These are much better facilities than the hostels have to offer, and they are also way below prices of hotels. In the convents, travelers may have private or semi-private rooms-and many offer private baths, a rare luxury in any European city. You do not have to be Catholic to be eligible to stay in a Roman convent.

If hostels or convents simply don't appeal to your taste, consider staying in a hotel in a smaller city close to Rome that offers bus travel to and from the City of Love. These will always be less expensive than the city itself.

MEALS

Since Rome is known for having some of the best cuisine in the world, you will want to enjoy as much of the authentic foods as possible. The best way to do this on a shoestring budget is by going to the local food stores to purchase snack items to eat two meals a day, and saving the bulk of your food money for one good restaurant meal a day. The noon meal is the best to eat out, as the lunch menus are always cheaper and have the same foods as the dinner menu.

If you don't want to go the food store route, then consider wine bars for your noon meal. They offer gourmet sandwiches and all kind of snacks with the drinks that will keep you full until your main meal of the day. Also remember that Rome if famous for their pizza, and it is one of the most inexpensive food items in the city. Buy a slice of it for one meal, and you'll be very satisfied. Stay away from American-type foods, such as hamburgers and such. They'll be very expensive, and you can have your fill of those foods back in the states!

TRANSPORTATION WITHIN THE CITY

Stay away from taxis and rental cars. Take

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