Giuliana Romeo, Engineering Perspectives of the Renaissance and Sustainability: Florence Summer 2023
A typical weekday always started with one thing — a cappuccino! My roommates and I all intended to eat our breakfasts at home to save money, but we were surprised to find how affordable dining out in Italy could be. Breakfast was incredibly affordable. Italian coffee is no Starbucks! The drink of choice for most Italians is a hot cappuccino, which is espresso with steamed milk. You won’t find many lattes in Italy, as the word directly translates to milk. On average a cappuccino would cost about €1.50, about $1.65, and any accompanying pastry you might choose is usually under $2.
It is not common to get coffee to go in Italy; their coffee culture is slow and leisurely. So, often before class, my roommates and I would sit down at a cafe near our school and enjoy a morning cappuccino for a half hour or so. We also tried to pay in cash often. Since the pandemic, Italy has become more friendly with tap to pay with credit cards, Apple Pay, etc. but for small purchases such as breakfast, cash was often preferred. We were able to take out Euros at our local grocery store ATM for a very good rate.
After breakfast, we had our engineering class in the mornings. This usually consisted of a lecture and sometimes a museum or site visit. One of our museum visits for our engineering class included the Galileo Museum, which housed many of Galileo’s inventions including his telescopes! These visits were always very interesting.
We then usually had a 2-to-3-hour break for lunch. Lunch usually consisted of a panini sandwich (staple of Florence) to go (€7-10) or, if we wanted to save money that day, a meal at home. In the afternoons we had our art history class. This class was almost always split into half lectures and half class visits to a museum or church. It was always so neat to learn about a work of art in the first half of class, and then go to see it an hour later. Florence is famous for its works of art: the Birth of Venus painting, Michelangelo’s David Statue, and the Medusa, just to name a few.
After art class a few times a week, we would usually go for gelato! My roommates’ and my favorite gelateria was nearby our school, so it was a natural stop on some hotter days! We would spend the evenings walking around and exploring Florence or resting in our apartment for a bit depending on how busy the day was.
We went out for dinner fairly often, probably 3 times a week. It was exciting to try the local Florentine cuisine and it was pretty reasonable to do so. Personal pizzas at pizzerias were usually €6-10 depending on what we ordered and pasta dishes €10-15. On nights we wanted to spend less money, we tried recreating some of our favorite pastas, salads, and other dishes at our apartment! A typical weekend day looked a little different. Saturday mornings were usually early ones. I was fortunate to live close to the train station to meet my friends who had chosen to go on weekend trips. During the week, we would do research on where we wanted to go. Train tickets were almost always under $50, and sometimes much cheaper. Depending on the place, we would choose a day trip or find a hostel or Airbnb for the night. Both options were pretty affordable depending on how many people we had. The trains were so nice and so fast! During the weekends my friends and I were able to travel to places like Rome, Venice, Pompeii, Cinque Terre, Milan, and many more. It was really interesting to see other areas of Italy and in many cases historical or breathtaking sights we had learned about our whole lives! Traveling really made the weekends so special. However, even the weekend days we spent in Florence were special. We got to explore our “home city” and see things we didn’t get to see in class – often for free.
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