Best of Italy in a Week: Venice, Florence, Tuscany and Rome Tour

We booked a trip to Italy with this travel company.  We chose this travel specialist after interviewing a couple of different agencies.  We like to travel and explore places independently, with some private touring and guides that are flexible.

Our travel specialist listened carefully and came up with a plan that was more our style of traveling.   We chose from a few hotels in each area and he arranged for tours and when we had some last minute ideas, he was mostly able to accommodate us including a guide who got us into the Florence Academia to see the statue of David.   It would have been helpful to know about the need for advance tickets to get in there as well as the Duomo, something that would have been helpful in our travels.  

Our travel specialist set us up for a pasta cooking class which was in the chef's home with another family which was a fund night.  We had dinner and wine with the chef, his assistant and the other family and it was awesome.

We first went to Florence and stayed in a newly refurbished hotel, which was wonderful.  A guide took us the day we arrived to see the David and we had a wonderful first day.  Our second and third days were well planned with enough freedom to see the city on our own.   We were unable to see the Duomo because we were unaware of the need for advanced tickets as mentioned earlier.  We did see the Duomo in Sienna which was worth it so it kind of made up for what we missed in Florence.

We then went to Tuscany and stayed in a low key resort with a farm, animals where they made wine and grew olives.  It was in the town of San Gimigiarno, This was one of our travel specialist's recommendations and it was a good one.  We asked for advice on touring Tuscany and followed his advice as we visited a few towns.   He made sure we had a van for our luggage and getting our car in Florence was not a big deal.

We finished our three days and then dropped off the car and headed for Venice.   We had a problem on the train where apparently our ticket was cancelled as someone was sitting in our seat.   A tour guide we had in Venice suggested that the high speed trains sometimes do this to people, and it was not likely our agents fault.  After we paid for four new tickets, our travel specialist's staff received a copy of my receipt and said they would take care of it and reimburse us for it.  It all worked out ok and the train conductor found us a somewhat upgraded area in another car.

Got to Venice and our travel specialist arranged for our water transfer to and from the hotel which was nicely located.   We arranged through him to get tickets for Doges palace and for the basilica in advance.  This was after I had asked prior to leaving, since it is difficult to see these sites without advance purchase.  Our travel specialist had arranged for us to take a Gondola Ride the first day but we ended up going the second day due to scheduling.   The change was arranged by a woman he hired to give us a tour

The final day, we had cancelled a gondola rowing lesson since it was a little too touristy for our tastes and instead went to the Jewish ghetto that morning.  

In the afternoon, he set us up for a tour of Burano, Murano and Toriccello, three islands next to Venice. Personally, we would have preferred a more private tour of Burano and perhaps Toricello.  Burano is beautiful, Toricello is basically a park that has some older historical churches and buildings.  

Murano is home to the Murano glass factory and we were shuttled into a glass blowing demo and then their store, never really seeing the island. Alittle too touristy for us, would have preferred a more personal and less rushed experience.

We traveled with this travel company in 2019 and had an extraordinary trip. Everything about it was excellent. This trip was fine, but not excellent. We were already in Europe before the detailed itinerary was available to us. We had to shorten our trip from the initial proposal. In shortening the trip, we inadvertently left out one of the primary reasons for the trip - a visit to the Dolomites.

It would have been helpful if our travel agency had made us aware that the choice of going to Merano instead of Brixen would rule out a visit to the Dolomites, since it is just too far away. This trip just felt like it was put together rather last minute, despite us reaching out months and months in advance for a proposal.

While we had first class tickets from our starting point in Innsbruck, our travel company did not/was unable to reserve seats, so we stood in an overcrowded train hallway for two hours to Bolzano. The train was oversold. Not a great start to the trip.

We also would have appreciated more details about excursions-such as how long they would last. Or that there was a 1.5 hour break between the visit to Doge's palace and the tour of St Mark's basilica.

A few of the guides/tours were excellent. Several were just ok and we would not recommend them to other travelers. The guide in Merano was ok, not great.

The Alpaca/Llama hike listed as taking place in an alpine meadow, actually involved walking the animals on a rope down sidewalks, through town, ending at a picnic table. Our guide was very personable, but this was not the special relaxing outing we imagined.

The guide in Venice used our 4 hours there to show us two churches, kept checking her watch and took us to cicchetti in a rather dirty, unused outside restaurant. Would not recommend it again.

Murano was ok, interesting to see how the glass is blown, but then turns into a selling event. Burano had one woman making lace, but that and just wandering around was the extent of our tour.

Overall Trip was excellent- travel tips were extremely helpful and suggested activities helped very much.  We followed there travel suggestions and were very satisfied. 

Some specific comments;

Rome-  Hotel was great, excellent breakfast (best we had) -  Tour guide for Forum  was very good, guy for vatican talked a little to much but didn't say much, didn't use suggested restaurants just picked out roadside cafe's and it worked great.  

Positano-  Hotel very good although shower did not drain and even after repeated requests no body fixed it. Breakfast very good ( second best) and mornings on the porch were priceless.  Used suggested restaurant, a bit pricey but good ( we typically prefer more casual dinners and stayed on our own for dinner locations after that) - trip to Capri was good (crowds made it a bit difficult to get going) lot of climbing. Ravello was cool but public bus wasted a lot of time and wasn't comfortable at all-  some direction might have helped.

Pompeii- we should have prepared more to get more out of it

Florence-  really need time, but that was our fault-  room location wasn't bad but a little bland-  it worked though, nothing exciting.  Replacement tour guide worked out very well- very knowledgeable.   Food tour was excellent.

 Car rental-  worked excellent - really glad we did it 

Abbey - interesting but 3 nights there was to much-  frankly bed was terrible (felt like it was from the middle ages) breakfast just OK and it was always a long drive back-  we did quite a bit in those three days but found that driving back and forth to the abbey took a LOT of time.  Tasting dinner OK- we would have preferred just ordering off the menu.  Would have liked to see Sienna or other locations more. Frankly we didn't plan well and tracked over the same roads many times. Cooking class was excellent-very much worth it.

Opera 2 -  excellent, views great, interesting location- two days is right.  Tasting dinner was OK? but given the choice we would do something else.  Ferrari museums were just good, Lamborghini facility was much better.

Venice- amazing place and crowded.  Took some time to drop the car and find the two locations to validate the travel transit tickets , especially the place for the transfer back to airport- office is in the train station and poorly marked. took a bit of time. Hotel was great- once we found it- maps and google map on phone don't work well as you probably know. Did what we could in a day and half (Murano glass tour was excellent- people were great) 

Trip home long but uneventful-  thanks for a great trip we will always remember.   Joe S

Our trip to Italy was amazing. We started in Venice, then to Florence, Montepulciano  and ended in Rome. Our travel agency provided some amazing experiences including glass bead making in Murano, pizza and tiramisu making in Florence and amazing wine tasting at small vineyards, visits to working farms and delicious culinary experiences. We were so happy with our experience and can't thank this travel planner enough!