I have a family of seven, so as you can imagine, when traveling expenses add up. If you have any ideas for saving money, and having a great experience, please share. I need help with everything; airfare, accommodation, food, everything. Links to good websites would also be helpful. Thanks!

You might find some of these sites useful.

I use Venere.com for accomodations here in Italy: http://www.venere.com/hotels/italy/ . It allows you to sort by price and has reviews by actual past guests.

The train website is here: http://www.ferroviedellostato.it/homepage_en.html . Note that there are family fares on some routes depending on the ages and various promotions are available. There are also discounts of up to 30% on the fast trains for early purchase of tickets. However, with that many people, it is likely to be more economical to rent a van. You might find this site useful for driving directions & times: http://www.viamichelin.com/ . It will also give you an estimate of tolls and fuel costs.

Airfares aren’t cheap and depend on where you’re coming from and exactly where you want to go. Try sites like: http://www.skyscanner.it/ for budget flights or http://www.kayak.com/ or http://www.expedia.com/

With respect to food, you can save some by shopping in the local markets and making your own sandwiches, etc. Generally, you can find a panino or pizza by the slice for 4 to 6 euro though or a pizza will run 8 to 13 euro. By the way, 1 pizza = 1 person typically here, but you can share if you carry out. Restaurants post menus and you can check them while you’re out exploring to find places that meet your tastes and budget. Look for local festivals and particularly Sagre - they feature local specialties and are usually a real bargain. There’s one in the town where I live that features maccheroni where the food is a couple of euro - until a couple of years ago, it was free.