Senior Tour of Venice, Florence, Rome, and Amalfi Coast Tour
What to expect on this itinerary
This 12-day trip is designed for those who have lived long enough to know what they like, and this theme will remain constant from the very moment you step into the living masterpiece of Italy. There is something about the Mediterranean world that values leisure more than other countries of the Western world. Attend a concert that displays the musical genius of Vivaldi, partake in a private cooking course, indulge in a boat tour of the Amalfi Coast.
Customizable Itinerary
Venice – Orientation by Gondola
The winding alleys and watery corridors of Venice will be your playground for the first leg of your 12-day Italy tour. Upon arrival, you will be transferred by private car and then a water taxi to ensure your rapid transfer to the city center and your luxurious accommodation. After settling in, a private gondola tour will help orient you to your new surroundings. A few steps from your accommodation, you will board a comfortable craft that will carry you through the city and introduce you to the major spots that you can later explore on foot.
What's Included:
Venice – Ponder Vivaldi’s Genius
Venice – Floating Tour of Venetian Villas
Florence – Tuscan Culinary Excellence
Florence – Ageless Splendor of the Old Town
Florence – The Largest Brick Dome in the World
Rome – A Roman Garden Reverie
Rome – The Vastness of St. Peter’s
Rome – Ramble Through Ancient Rome
Amalfi – Boutiques and Beaches
Amalfi – A Breathtaking Voyage
Amalfi – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Enjoy your first day in Venice on a private gondola tour of the city’s many waterways and bustling canals
- Savor the stringed melodies and musical genius of Vivaldi at a concert that will exhibit the talent that made this native son of Venice a world-class artist
- Bask in the rural charm of Veneto on a boat tour of the Brenta Riviera, which separates Padua from Venice and exhibits some of the regions most exquisite villas
- Roll up your sleeves during a cooking tour that is designed to introduce you to the proud tradition of Italian gastronomy and some of the secrets that make Tuscan cooking some of the best in the world
- Ramble through the red-roofed neighborhoods of Florence and lose yourself in the ageless splendor that inspires and uncovers the youth in all
- Wind up the narrow passages and carry you to the best view of Florence from the top of the Dome on a guided tour
- Step into the wonderful world of the Roman elite with a visit to the Villa Borghese, where you can wander the pristine gardens or marvel at the stunning artwork acquired by this famous Roman family
- Witness the stunning views of the Amalfi Coast on a private boat tour
Detailed Description
Timeless is just one of many praises Italy receives. The country is a playground for those who have also stood the test of time. With a history that dates back to before Christianity with all the modern amenities a traveler could desire, now is the best time to indulge in the perfect combination of comfort and adventure.
This adventure will begin on the shores of the Adriatic sea and the bustling port of Venice. The city overgrew the Italian archipelago that supported it, and today, it has to rely on a series of pontoons, pilings, and piers to support the growing sprawl. Through musical performances, recommended attractions, and guided tours, you will uncover this idyllic setting and fall in love with a city that is home to over 400 bridges. Next, you will venture to Florence and immerse yourself in the culinary capital of the region. From wines to steak, Tuscany boasts quite a legacy of food and drink, and it is here that you will learn the secrets of the Italian kitchen. After tasting two of the country’s most vibrant cities, you will transfer to Rome. Finally, you will conclude your tour on the pristine shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Amalfi Coast. Elevated to the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site, Amalfi sits at the midpoint of the coast that shares its name and presents visitors with world-class restaurants, beaches, and shopping. Whether reclining with a book, partaking in the subtle art of the haggle with a street vendor, you will truly enjoy your time here.
The early spring is the best time of year to book this tour because mild temperatures will have arrived but not the crowds. Summer can still be a great time to visit, but higher temperatures and crowds will flood public services and contribute to long lines at the top attractions. No matter when you arrive, you can rest assured that this tour will place your comfort above everything else.
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 2611 reviews
We are a family of two seniors travelled with Zicasso for the second time. This May we wished to tour Tuscany, Amalfi coast and Rome with the starting point at Florence and Rome as an ending point. All my contacts with our trip adviser via email were very productive and efficient. She understood very well all our trip requirements, interests, timetable and budget. All 4 star hotels met our expectations and one in Chianty surprised us with the unique details like a huge beautiful fire place in our room of the building built in 18th century.
Our trip planner called us several times during our exploration of Italy to ensure we were fully satisfied. Our guides in Florence and Rome were superb.
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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!
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I could not have been more impressed or satisfied with this travel company and specifically our agent who designed and arranged our tours. The trip was amazing from the guides to the drivers to the tours in every city we visited including Rome, Positano, Florence / Tuscany, Venice and Milan. Everything was effortless and we had zero stress. The guides were amazing and spoke perfect English. The tours were unbelievable including the horseback riding and wine tasting tour in Tuscany and the all day boat cruise Amalfi Coast. It was the best day of our trip and the only way to see the towns along the Amalfi Coast. I would recommend this company and this agent to anyone and everyone. They created one of the best vacations I have ever been on!
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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.
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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.
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We did a 12 day trip that included Venice, Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. It was a 30th anniversary trip for us. My brother and sister-in-law also travelled with us. It was our first trip to Italy and we wanted to make sure that we could enjoy our vacation without worrying about logistics, transportation, etc. And having never been in Italy, we needed guidance and recommendations for the right accommodations. Our travel agency met or exceeded all of our expectations. Our agents paid close attention to our wishes and carefully planned out the perfect itinerary. They did so while also honoring our budget. They put us in great hotels in the hearts of Venice, Rome and Florence. And we had spectacular views from our hotels in Tuscany and Sorrento. Great drivers and guides were arranged at every stop. In addition to private tours of traditional sites (Vatican, Coliseum, Uffizzi Gallery, St. Mark's Basilica, Pompeii), Our agents also arranged a one of kind wine-tasting and lunch at a small Tuscan farm and a special cooking class at a Michelin starred restaurant. Even with all of the activities, we still had plenty of free time to wander on our own or simply relax. Plus, our agents were always available by phone or e-mail both before and during the trip if we had any questions. They are incredibly responsive. And all of this cost about the same as a high quality group tour. We felt like we got the perfect 30th anniversary trip and that it was an excellent value. I highly recommend this company.
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