Noted author and tour guide Rick Steves offers a tour of Italy that promises the best of the country in 17 days. The tour stars on Lake Como and offers hiking in alpine meadows, along with visits to Italy's greatest cities, Venice, Florence, Pisa and Rome. The tour also takes in seaside Cinque Terre villages, the medieval village of Siena, St. Francis's Assisi and the hill towns and vineyards of Umbria. Along with Steves as the guide, a selection of local experts gives tour members a view of Italian history, art and culture. Walking tours, wine tasting, demonstrations and boat rides are part of this tour. Noted destinations, such as the Uffizi Gallery, the Colosseum, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica are all included. Groups are from 24 to 28 people, and a number of free items are included with the tour price: guidebook, phrase book, money belt and earplugs.
Rick Steves Tours
Europe Through the Back Door
130 4th Avenue North
PO Box 2009
Edmonds WA 98020
425-771-8303
Ricksteves.com
A two-week train trip through Italy can be an entertaining way to see, according to the website Life in Italy, "some of the Italian countryside without the hectic traffic or crowded buses." Train travelers can choose state room trains that go at a leisurely pace or modern high-speed ones, like the EuroStar Italia, which has luxury amenities. Sleeper cabins on night trains are available. Italian Rail Service offers a variety of rail passes and packages for travelers, and the Life in Italy website provides detailed itineraries for visits of two weeks to two months. The two-week visit includes stops in Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome, with opportunities for shopping, museum-visiting and people-watching. In Verona, travelers can visit the sites mentioned in Romeo and Juliet, and in Venice, taking a vaporetto along the Grand Canal is a must-do. Florence and Rome are the places to visit art galleries and historical locations. Justin Demetri, Life in Italy editor, says that this two-week itinerary "gives the traveler well-rounded balance of the best of Italy."
Life in Italy
Editor: Justin Demetri
Lifeinitaly.com
Italy's noted cities can be explored with this Globus Tours vacation, which is marketed through Affordable Tours. The highlights of the tour include St. Peter's, Sistine Chapel, Colosseum, Michelangelo's David, Bridge of Sighs in Venice and much more. The guides are local, and a welcome dinner with wine at a Roman restaurant starts off the tour. This nine-day tour includes Rome, Florence, Verona and Venice but also adds scenic tours of the countryside, particularly the Tyrrhenian coast, Lombardian plains and the wooded Etruscan Apennine mountain range. Tuscany's Chianti wine country is also a noted site along the tour, where olive trees are numerous, and an optional festive dinner is available. Most meals are included with this tour.
AffordableTours
11150 Cash Road
Stafford, TX 77477
8-800-935-2620
Affordabletours.com
For the fast-paced, energetic traveler, Reid's offers what it calls the "Ultimate Italy Insane 2-Week Whirlwind." The tour includes Rome, Florence, Venice, Pisa, Assisi, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, the Cinque Terre and Milan. The tour offers a beginning in Rome and an ending point in either Venice or Milan, which saves a full day of traveling back to a starting point. Highlights of the tour include the fishing villages along the Cinque Terre and churches in the Tiber Bend and museums both well-known and humble. The Pantheon, Piazza Navona (often called Rome's prettiest square) and the museums and architecture of Rome are highlights of that city, which takes up five days of the tour. Three days are spent in Umbria and Tuscany hill towns, two days in Florence, two days in the Cinque Terre and two days in Venice. Reid's says to consider this tour as a "blueprint to squeezing in the maximum possible."
Reids Italy
Editor: Reid Bramlett
Reidsitaly.com
