An Italian Experience with Carolyn Costa

Tour classic Italy in luxury, in a small group of 6 or 7 people with Carolyn as your guide and escort. Spend your first four days in Rome. Visit the Vatican and take a private tour of the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Explore Ancient Rome and wander around the Eternal City following a route that takes you through piazzas, past fountains, into churches and down the most exciting shopping streets. Stay in an intimate hotel and breakfast on a rooftop terrace. Share a Roman dinner with your new friends.

Travel through Umbria with a private driver from Assisi to Gubbio and Urbino. Explore medieval towns in the Apennine Mountains. Visit a ceramic studio. Eat breakfast in a frescoed room in a family hotel. Experience the passeggiata in a small town and enjoy a unique menu of Umbrian specialties one night.

Have an Italian picnic lunch on a train to Venice and walk along the canals as the lights turn on in the evening. Stay in a hotel that was once an Abbey and visit the island of Murano to learn about glass blowing. Take a ride on a gondola and discover the charm of ancient and romantic Venice, then taste the specialties of Venice with your traveling companions. Marvel at the gold mosaics in the Basilica San Marco and stroll across the Rialto Bridge. The charm of Venice is found in walking it. Four nights in Venice will leave you enchanted forever.

Move to the mainland by taking a day long cruise on the Brenta Canal visiting villas along the way. Stay in Padua and visit one of the oldest universities in Italy. Explore the Veneto area with a day trip to Vicenza and Verona. See the Roman Arena and fine examples of Palladio's architecture. Enjoy a dinner that offers the best cuisine of the Veneto area in Verona before returning to Padua.

In Florence spend six nights in a hotel located in the heart of the city. Eat gelato every chance you get. Find your favorite flavor and eat more. Have a special dinner with a Florentine menu one night. Picture the Ponte Vecchio before it was jewelry shops. It was the place where all the butcher shops were before the 16th century. Florence is the city of Renaissance art. The most important artwork ever produced abounds in Florence and Carolyn has a passion for sharing her knowledge of it.

Take a break from Florence with two different day trips to see the Tuscan countryside. One day visit Pisa to see the leaning tower and the walled city of Lucca with its piazza on the site of a Roman amphitheater. Another day a private driver will take you to Siena to wander the maze of narrow streets and sit in the sun in the Campo. Late afternoon will bring you to San Gimignano to see the city of towers and enjoy a dinner of the tastes of Tuscany.

Return to Rome for your last few days. Use your time to make sure you have missed nothing. There will be a farewell dinner the last night where you can share a meal with the new friends you have made on your tour. You will depart for home in the morning most likely already planning your return.

And don't forget you'll dine for hours, bask in the sun and eat gelato.