Italien

Tar du in på vandrarhem får du mer pengar till restaurangbesök och andra nöjen. Vagabond har listat tre tips på budgetboenden i Rom.

Literally the ‘other side of the Arno’, this achingly hip ’hood is traditionally home to Florence's artisans and its old-world, bohemian streets are sprinkled with botteghe (workshops), independent boutiques and hybrid forms of both. It embraces the area south of the river and west of Ponte Vecchio; its backbone is Borgo San Jacopo, clad with shops and a twinset of 12th-century towers, Torre dei Marsili and Torre de' Belfredelli. Cuisine – prepared using artisanal ingredients, of course – is a real strength here, with bags of fashionable restaurants and drinks to entice.

Covering 370 sq km, Lake Garda is the largest of the Italian lakes, straddling the border between three regions: the Lombard plains to the west, Alpine Trentino Alto-Adige to the north and the rolling hills of the Veneto to the east. Look around and you’ll be surprised to see a Mediterranean landscape of vineyards, olive groves and citrus orchards that is thanks to the lake's uniquely mild microclimate.

Fusing haughty elegance with down-to-earth grit in one beautifully colonnaded medieval grid, Bologna is a city of two intriguing halves. One side is a hard-working, high-tech city located in the super-rich Po valley where suave opera-goers waltz out of regal theatres and into some of the nation's finest restaurants. The other is a bolshie, politically edgy city that hosts the world's oldest university and is famous for its graffiti-embellished piazzas filled with mildly inebriated students swapping Gothic fashion tips.

Just beyond the glamor of Sardinia lies an island full of myth, tradition, incredible cuisine scenery that will leave you breathless.

When museum and/or tourist overload strikes – a common occurrence in this culturally resplendent city – consider stretching your legs amid some urban greenery in this soul-soothing eastern neighbourhood on the Oltrarno (aka 'the other side of the river'). Fronted by the grandiose palace of Palazzo Pitti, jam-packed with museums, Boboli's magnificent tier of palaces, villas and gardens climbs uphill to San Miniato, a hilltop ’hood famously crowned by a copy of Michelangelo's David and one of the city’s oldest and most beautiful churches. Views, predictably, are sweeping and soul-soaring.

Utanför den italienska småstaden Bomarzo är skogen full av monster. Med förvrängda och groteska ansikten och förtvivlade sneda grimaser vittnar de om deras skapare Pier Francesco Orsinis stora sorg efter förlusten av hans fru.

Como (aka Lario) is the most ‘James Bond’ of the Italian lakes, where shiny red Ferraris weave through narrow lakeside towns and neoclassical villas take on a whole new level of opulence. Parts of the 2006 Bond movie Casino Royale were filmed here and many of the fancy lakeside hotels have a 007 price tag.

I Santo Stefano di Sessanio hittar Vagabonds chefredaktör ett hotell som ligger utspridd i olika tradtionella hus runtom i den medeltida bergsbyn.

Uppför dig och visa respekt för de som bor här. Eller riskera att bli bötfälld. Det är budet från Florens som infört nya regler för turister som besöker den historiska staden.