Family Discovery of Italy: Venice, Florence, Rome, and Amalfi Coast Tour
What to expect on this itinerary
Come and remember what it’s like to throw back the covers with anticipation and share timeless memories with those most important to you with this 12-day tour of Italy. If travel rouses the youth in us, then no country accomplishes this better than Italy. Situated at the juncture of two continents and the Mediterranean, Italy boasts a vivid character that displays this geographic perspective through its history, culture, and cuisine. Experience it all by booking your Italy tour today.
Customizable Itinerary
Amalfi – A Seaside Orientation
The first leg of your Italian excursion will begin in the region that surrounds the Bay of Naples. It is here that you will find stunning coastlines, imposing volcanoes, and some of the best beaches in Italy. After arriving at the main airport of Naples, a private transfer will deliver you to the Sorrentine Peninsula and your accommodation in Amalfi. In this rugged landscape of rocky mountains, there is no room for urban sprawl. After settling in to your comfortable accommodations, you can stretch your legs by strolling through the charming city center of Amalfi or by making your way to the beach.
What's Included:
Amalfi – Capri’s Famous Blue Grotto
Amalfi – Bask in the Sun
Amalfi – In the Footsteps of the Gods
Rome – The Wrath of the Gods
Rome – Tour of the Colosseum
Rome – Family-Friendly Scavenger Hunt
Florence – Tour of Florence’s Famous Dome
Florence – Italian Pasta-Making Course
Venice – The City of Canals
Venice – Mask-Making Workshop
Venice – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Stroll through the seaside communities of the Amalfi Coast, where fisherman once plied the waves for pirates and wrathful gods
- Marvel at the dramatic splendor of Capri and enjoy a subterranean visit to the famous Blue Grotto
- Weave among the vineyards, orchards, and terraced gardens of the Italian coastline on the Walk of the Gods and encounter some incredible views of the Mediterranean
- Witness nature’s fury during a visit to the ruins of Pompeii, where one of the most famous disasters of the ancient world unfolded
- Inspect ancient sources of entertainment through a guided tour of the Coliseum, where you will learn of the violent, and usually short, careers of the gladiators
- Engage with Rome’s major attractions on a lively scavenger hunt through the city center and visit the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, and other notable corners of this colorful city
- Ponder the vastness of the Florentine Cathedral and the legacy of its architects on a guided tour of its interior
- Partake in a guided boat tour of Venice and learn how this city with a scarcity of dry land became one of Italy’s major maritime powers
- Indulge your creative side at a Carnival mask-making workshop and participate in Venice’s version of this global celebration
Detailed Description
Italy is a land of boundless fun. A playground for both adults and children, every inch of this land possesses a quality that will attract and entice you to the point where you cannot help but sit back, relax, and enjoy the experience. This 12-day tour of Amalfi, Rome, Florence, and Venice is tailored to the dynamic traveler and those who wish to experience the essence of Italy.
Your journey will begin in Campania, which is a region that is filled to the brim with picturesque coastlines, a notorious volcano, and an assortment of charming villages, castles, and villas. The next leg of your journey will be the Eternal City and capital of Italy. Rome has long held the reputation of being a cosmopolitan center, and the modern metropolis does not disappoint. From the romantic character of Rome, you will make your way to Florence. Here, the stateliness of the capital gives way to a free-spirited city that seems designed to awaken the senses. With remarkable dishes and stunning examples of Renaissance art, Florence will leave with lasting memories. Your journey will conclude along the playful waterways and exciting piazzas of Venice. Here, you will learn why this city continues to be a top destination for international travelers who are seeking a memorable stop on their Italian excursion.
Like a fine wine, this itinerary is best paired with a Spring or Fall arrival. By arriving in these seasons, families are able to avoid the sometimes scorching temperatures of the summer in addition to enjoying relatively crowd-free excursions. Activities generally include guided tours of key districts or neighborhoods, cooking or other cultural classes, and a host of other handcrafted experiences that are designed to elevate your time in Italy.
Starting Price
$4,300 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
The starting price is based on travel during the low season for a minimum of two travelers staying in shared 3-star accommodations. Please inquire for a custom trip quote based on your travel preferences and travel dates.
Verified Traveler Reviews
Based on 3202 reviews
Our trip to Italy was amazing! We are a family of four with two daughters in college. We enjoyed outdoor adventures on the Amalfi coast including hiking the Path of the Gods and swimming in grottos in Capri, tours of ancient Rome and the Vatican, art and food tours in Florence, a day in Tuscany including a private wine tasting and tour, and tours in Venice. All of our guides were very personable and extremely knowledgeable. Our transportation was timely and effortless on our part. It was so nice to have pre-planned excursions with our own private guides, while also having time to explore on our own. Thanks to this travel agent, we were able to fully enjoy the trip without stressing over logistical details.
See more
The travel agency did a wonderful job, helping us plan our itinerary in Italy. We visited Venice, Florence, the Tuscany region, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast. The travel agency arranged for us to have private and small group tours, which allowed us to engage in conversation with the Italian people. Everyone was so kind and welcoming! The history was fascinating, as we visited museums and cathedrals in Venice and Florence. We enjoyed wonderful food at the winery, our pizza party, pasta making party, and at the goat cheese farm in Tuscany. We enjoyed wonderful grilled out food while overlooking the beautiful Tuscany region at a family owned, organic olive oil producing company. In Sorrento, and on the Amalfi coast, we enjoyed the beautiful, coastal views, and the abundance of lemon trees. Our drivers were on time, with car seats when needed for our three grandchildren, ages 4, 2, and five months. The travel company was very attentive to our needs, and we are grateful for their help in making this a wonderful vacation!
See more
See more
We had a fantastic trip and great help from Kate, our consultant. Kate set us up in fun and comfortable hotels in Venice, Florence, the Amalfi Coast and Rome. Our teenagers aren't into museums but they are foodies--Kate sent us on great walking tours, a great driver on the Amalfi Coast and personally guided us in Cinque Terra. It was fun and a memory we'll all cherish.
See more
Planning a trip overseas with young children can be overwhelming when you don’t know all of the customs, the area, or how to get your little one safely from one place to the next. For those reasons, we considered a group tour of Italy for our first trip, but they just seemed to all be designed in the same cookie cutter fashion and without the kind of flexibility we hoped to enjoy. Thankfully we found our way to our agent with this Italy travel company who put together a custom itinerary that truly enabled us to experience several parts of this beautiful country—Venice, Florence, Rome, and The Amalfi Coast. From the individualized planning, the well-coordinated transportation, the lovely accommodations, knowledgeable guides, unique experiences, and especially the little details such as a local cell phone pre-loaded with all of the numbers and documents we would need during our trip, she went above and beyond in designing a trip that was unforgettable in all of the right ways. For these reasons and those discussed below, I enthusiastically recommend this company to anyone planning an Italian vacation.
From the start, we worked with several travel agents at different companies, trying to design an itinerary that fit our needs, interests, and budget. Our agent was the only one that seemed to truly listen to us and select not only hotels and transportation that would accommodate a toddler, but also experiences that would include her and were unique to our interests, even including a trip to my family’s hometown that was far off of the beaten path. She also offered us advice on best ways to get around with children in each city, provided a list of restaurants that would welcome our daughter, and, when I unexpectedly learned I was expecting another child, she offered to let everyone involved with our trip know of any special needs or food aversions I might have. While the individualized service and transportation would seem to come with a hefty price tag, the cost was actually the same as the hokey bus tours and very competitive with all of the other offers from travel agents we received, making the choice of this company a no brainer.
And the transportation alone was well worth the price. Everything was so beautifully choreographed: for instance, we walked out of our hotel in Venice and boarded a water taxi, which took us to a Mercedes van with child seat installed that was waiting for us, which took us to the train station where we boarded and took our first class seats. All of our transportation ran this smoothly, and we know there is no way we could have seen everything we did see had we tried to navigate Italy on our own. We always rode in luxury vehicles. Some were even equipped with DVD players for our little one. The drivers were excellent. Each English speaking driver was waiting for us at the airport or train station with a sign, handled all of our luggage, and acted as our first guides to each city as well. Additionally none of them pushed for any of the tips they definitely earned.
The hotels also exceeded our expectations. All of the accommodations were well-located, four star properties, and were the same hotels our agent included in her original price quote. When we were planning our trip, people kept telling us of the small quarters you’re forced to stay in in Italy and other European cities, but we did not find this to prove true in the hotels our agent chose for us. Every room had at least a queen size bed and a full size bed for our toddler, a sitting area, as well as a decent sized bathroom—one even had two bathrooms, another even had a bathtub, which is quite rare in Italy. Each hotel offered an exceptional free breakfast with a mixture of hot and cold entre choices and fresh local produce. Plus every hotel offered something different. In Venice we stayed at a boutique hotel with a long history that was in an area all of the locals agreed had the best restaurants and cafes. It had a lovely courtyard with a pool. In Florence we stayed in a sleek, modern hotel that featured a rooftop pool and bar with stunning views of the city. In Rome we stayed at a modern boutique hotel that greeted our child with a t-shirt, coloring book, and candies. And finally in Positano we stayed in a hotel that had terraces overlooking the bay and city, a pool that looked out to the water and mountains, and an excellent restaurant. The hotel staff at each place was quite friendly, and I doubt we could have selected better places on our own.
All of our local guides had specialized knowledge that made them an excellent fit for the service they provided. In Rome we visited the ancient sites with a sculptor who spent his childhood at the ruins with his father, a famous archeologist involved in the digs and study of the ruins. In Venice we got to know the city by spending the day walking and boating with a woman who spent nearly her entire life there, who gave us excellent recommendations for restaurants and things to do, and knew almost each person we passed. Similarly in Pisa, we were introduced to the city by a woman who lived there and whose husband operated a local winery. They were all so knowledgeable and friendly, and having them to ourselves for much of the day was invaluable, as we were able to ask questions and visit some places not accessible to large groups.
Once we were introduced to the city, our agent also planned unique experiences to help us experience the place. We toured Venice by water. We biked our way through the narrow streets and beautiful countryside of Florence. We toured a winery and had a private six course lunch with wine pairings. We let our toddler run through an amazing Sculpture Park in Chianti. We shopped, cooked, and dined with a chef in Rome. We sampled foods at specialized eateries in a neighborhood that pre-dates the Coliseum. We visited the abbey at Monte Cassino, rebuilt after being destroyed during WWII. And we travelled the entire Amalfi Coast by boat, visiting the Emerald Grotto, the Blue Grotto, swimming in caves, and enjoying Positano, Amalfi, and Capri. In two weeks we saw, experienced, and tasted so much that we will continue to relive this trip for a lifetime.
In all ways, as I hope is clear, this trip was exceptional because of our agent's hard work and the work of all at our travel company. This showed not only in the ways already described, but also in all of the small details. We were greeted upon arrival with a welcome package and were given a phone that had all of our tickets, our itinerary, and everyone’s phone number loaded onto it. Our agent checked in with us periodically while we were there and made it clear that we could call at any time if we had questions, concerns, or if something was not up to par. When our boat tour was late, for instance, she called to change our dinner reservations. And she even educated us about some Italian customs before we arrived.
A trip like this one is a financial investment for many of us, and I know from experience that putting your trust and your hard-earned money into the hands of someone you only communicate with via email or phone is scary. But believe me, if you choose this company, you will not be making a poor decision. There is literally nothing more I could have asked for, no other way this trip could have been more spectacular, and no better way I could have spent every one of my pennies. Thank you to our agent for making us the envy of all of our Facebook friends, for truly making this an awesome family vacation, and for making one of my ultimate dreams come true.
See more
See more
Related tours
8 Day Trip IdeaFrom $3,600
Kid-Friendly Vacation: Rome to Venice
9 Day Trip IdeaFrom $4,100
Italy Family Vacation: Rome to Amalfi Coast
15 Day Trip IdeaFrom $6,800
Coast to Coast Tour of Italy for Seniors: Amalfi to Venice
8 Day Trip IdeaFrom $3,600
Family-Friendly Tour of Italy: Rome, Tuscany, Venice
11 Day Trip IdeaFrom $5,000
Tantalizing Gastronomy Tour of Venice, Florence, Rome, and Amalfi Coast
12 Day Trip IdeaFrom $5,800