We Saved So Much $$ On Our Trip to Italy ---Staying At A Convent!
With Our Trip to Italy, THIS is How We Saved a TON of $$ !
--I know many people plan for a trip to Italy years in advance....and you should if you want the best experience. Money is often a big factor when calculating a European Vacation, and I wish to share with you How we saved a ton of money.
Staying at a Convent.
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| Convent in Italy |
People have been using convents as a traveling stop for centuries. Most people have a view of staying at a convent like: "you are a religious nomad trying to find inner peace on your foot-walking journey" type of thing. --to each his own. BUT! When I traveled to Italy, I was able to save a lot of money by staying at a convent.
Most convents are large buildings with relatively few people actually living in the building. Our convent was just like this: a large building (almost compound like) with commercial size kitchens, dormitory style hallways, and everything was separate from the religious aspect of the nuns who actually lived there. The convent had the "hotel" feel due to the actual living standard...nice rooms, hot water, independent bathrooms, good food, etc. yet it didn't have that commercial aspect of "we are glad you are here because we have a bank loan we need to pay off--so thanks for your money, I mean business!"
I would love to spend the rest of this post just telling you about the actual convent...but I will save that for a latter post. I want to explain WHY staying at the convent saved us the money. Cool?
Simple.
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| Dining Hall in a Convent |
One of the major reasons why WE were able to save $ was the simple fact about the convent being simple! As I mentioned earlier, this was not the Royal Palace guarded by Special Forces...there are no famous painting on the walls, no fancy dressed door men to help you out of the car, the rooms where not 2,500ft2...it was a normal place, which sole purpose was not catering to tourists. This was ACTUAL ITALY and we were able to stay in ITALY--not "tourist Italy". Because the building had been paid off for hundreds of years--there was no big bill every month from the bank...so they (the convent) didn't NEED to charge much money. We were able to save money at the place we stayed just because they didn't NEED to make money off of us.
Every Level Accommodations.
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| Medium Size Group in Italy |
This is probably what impressed me the most about the convent during our trip to Italy...the convent had you covered no matter what the size of the group.
If you are planning a honeymoon, if you are the leader of a 10 person group, or if you are taking 50 college students for a one month archaeological dig in Italy...a convent can provide what you need. The fact that the convent where we stayed during our trip to Italy could house any option gave the convent the able to accept any almost any group...meaning No Money Left of the Table for THEM. With not turning away paying groups, the convent had the ability to charge less money because they had a steady stream of different size groups always needing a place to stay.
The flexibility of being able to adjust the number of travelers within our group didn't even phase our travel accommodations. Here is what I mean. Say you are in a group of 20 people and you have all the $$ figured out and divided evenly between the whole group. At the very last moment, 4 for the people in the group can't go...whatever reason, they just can't make it. YOU now have to re-figure the $$ and adjust the money to fit a 16 person group now. Yet, a convent can say, "No problem, we can give you the same room deals for 16 as opposed to 20." This allows travelers to not need to pick up tabs for nonexistent people.
Meals in a Convent REALLY Saved Money!
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| Open Air Market in Italy |
Doing just a little bit of homework with the convent you wish to stay will saved you so much money, you will be able to spend more days in Italy.
The convent allowed us to decided WHAT meals we wished to eat during our stay. Everyday we wanted breakfast...so that was planned. However, there were certain days which we wanted to leave early and go to Rome--therefore we would be back late at night. --On these days, we asked if they could have some late snacks available for us on those specific days---no problem. Several days our groups wasn't going anywhere just milling around the town and seeing whatever we could find...so was asked for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner on those days......again it was no problem. Lastly, there were days which we needed Breakfast and Lunch, but we would be out of place for dinner. Not a single issue with having to bend and flex the eating schedule from the convent. We ironed out the trip's meals with the convent. The nuns bought all the food from local markets and local farmers so the food was very inexpensive to purchase, and they cooked it all. (I personally believe the nuns saw taking care of visitors as part of their duties, and they didn't charge us for cooking and cleaning rooms---just a little side note). This saved a ton of money because we didn't have to eat out for all meals.
Best All Around Accommodations for a Trip to Italy.
Every trip is different and unique. Yet staying in a convent gave us the able to actually feel like we were living in Italy instead of just being a tourist. We got to eat real food from the local markets and cooked by people who were trained to cook by their grandmother---not just a person who knows how to microwave food.
The best thing about staying at the convent: when I laid down my head to go to sleep...I thought, I'm actually in Italy--not in a hotel.
But at the end of the day/trip...I learned I would have spent nearly twice what I did if we had stayed at hotels and eat out during our trip.
Also...Rick Steve's has a very great video and book about traveling in Italy from Amazon,
I hope this blog post gives you a little insight into a new place to stay during your trip to Italy...and here is a link for a list of places (convents/monasteries) to stay with contact info.
Please check out more blogs! This post might have affiliate links but the proceeds go to furthering the blog about trip to Italy. Thanks
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