Vacation package
Italy Escorted, Ten Days
Ten days through three Italian cities with a guide who stays with the group, transport arranged between them, hotels held in advance and the museum entries already bought. Quoted per person for two sharing. This is the trip for people who want to see a lot and do not want to plan it.
What a guide is actually worth
You can do these three cities on your own. Plenty of people do, and we will happily quote you the independent version instead.
What you buy on an escorted tour is the removal of about forty small decisions a day: which station, which platform, which entrance, which queue, whether the ticket you bought online is the one that lets you in. On a ten day trip with three cities and a language you do not speak, those decisions are most of the tiredness.
from $2,480 per person, based on two sharing
This is a starting figure for the season shown. The final price is confirmed in writing before anything is booked and depends on your dates, the number travelling and what is available when we ask. How a price is put together.
What you give up
We would rather write this down than let you find out on day four.
- The schedule is not yours. Departure times are fixed and the group waits for nobody, which is what makes it run.
- You will eat some meals with forty people. The good itineraries leave most evenings free; the weaker ones do not, which is one of the things we check before recommending an operator.
- The pace is brisk. Ten days and three cities is not a restful holiday, and anybody who tells you it is has not done it.
- Hotels are usually good and rarely central in the way a small hotel you chose yourself would be. Coaches have to be able to reach them.
How we choose which operator
There are many companies running a version of this itinerary and they are not equal. We look at the same four things every time.
| What we look at | Why it decides the recommendation |
|---|---|
| The size of the group | Twenty people move through a gallery differently from fifty. The published maximum matters more than the average. |
| How many evenings are free | An itinerary that fills every evening is padding its inclusions list at the cost of your trip. |
| Where the hotels actually are | A hotel described as Florence can be forty minutes from Florence. We check the address, not the name. |
| What happens when something closes | Sites close for restoration and strikes happen. The difference between operators is entirely in what they do that afternoon. |
The six questions, answered
| Where and how long | Ten days moving between three cities, typically Rome, Florence and Venice in that order, with the transport between them arranged and the hotels held before you leave. Two or three nights in each place, and one long day of travel in the middle that a good itinerary uses well rather than wastes. |
|---|---|
| What kind of trip | Escorted. A guide travels with the group for the whole trip, and local guides join for particular sites. Group sizes on the tours we sell run between about twenty and forty people. It is the least free of the trips on this site and by a distance the least work. |
| What is included | Round trip flights from Boise, all hotels with breakfast, transport between cities, the services of the tour director throughout, local guides at the main sites, entry to the sites named in the itinerary, luggage handling at the hotels, and a written day by day itinerary before you go. |
| What is not included | Most lunches and dinners, which the itinerary leaves free on purpose. Drinks with included meals. Tips for the tour director and driver, which are customary and which we will tell you the usual amount for rather than leave you guessing. Travel insurance. Optional excursions offered during the tour. |
| When it makes sense, and when it does not | It makes sense in April, May, September and October, when the weather is workable and the queues are human. It works in March and November at lower prices, with shorter days and a real chance of rain. We do not recommend July and August: the heat in Rome and Florence is genuinely punishing on a walking tour, and this itinerary walks. |
| What is settled when we confirm | The exact departure date and the tour operator running it, the day by day itinerary in writing, the hotels by name and location, what meals are included on which days, the group size limit, the total for your party, the deposit and balance dates, and the operator's cancellation schedule in full. |