• 5 Dinner (D)
• 10 Breakfast (B)
• 1 Lunch (L)

• Business class coach with extended leg room
• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays

• Rome: Savour dinner at a uniquely Roman restaurant, offering a perfect exploration of Lazio’s typical flavours.
• Florence: Savour authentic Tuscan delights as you relax over a leisurely dinner paired with local wine in the heart of the city.
• Rome: Enjoy a dinner of delicious Italian cuisine and wine, accompanied by the rich tremolo of some of Italy’s best-loved songs.

• Vatican City: Visit the Vatican Museums and witness the genius of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.

• Florence: Join your Travel Director on a short walk to a local spot loved by residents. Sample a classic Italian treat and hear how it became a staple of the area. It’s a chance to experience the flavours locals grow up with and return to time and again.
• Florence: Stand beside Michelangelo’s monumental statue, ‘David’, in the Accademia Gallery, and admire the exquisite technique and absorbing history behind the world’s most famous sculpture.

Visit the UNESCO-listed Piazza dei Miracoli to view the colonnaded Leaning Tower of Pisa, the ornate marble Baptistery, and the Romanesque Cathedral. Your Travel Director points out sculpted arcades, soaring curves, and the curious beauty born of a fateful tilt.

Hear how soft subsoil set the bell tower listing in the 12th century and how ingenious stabilizations preserved it. Pause for photos amid gleaming white stone, manicured lawns, and Pisan pride in a medieval center of wealth and learning.

Insight Vacations

Discover the treasures of the Holy See on a guided visit through the Vatican Museums with fast-tracked entry. Trace galleries of ancient sculpture and Renaissance tapestries before pausing beneath the Sistine Chapel to study Michelangelo’s ceiling and The Last Judgment, alive with biblical drama and masterful color.

Outside, admire the majestic facade of St Peter’s Basilica and the grand embrace of Bernini’s colonnades in St Peter’s Square. Your Local Specialist layers art history with papal lore, revealing how this tiny state shaped faith, power, and aesthetics across Europe.

Step inside the Colosseum, the Flavian amphitheater inaugurated in AD 80, and picture gladiators beneath roaring crowds. Your Local Specialist unpacks the arena’s engineering genius and the politics of spectacle that defined imperial Rome.

Continue through the city’s archaeological heart to view the Arch of Constantine, hear legends of the Circus Maximus, and gaze toward the Palatine Hill, cradle of Rome’s earliest settlements. These touchpoints link myth, Republic, and Empire in a compact sweep of history.

Explore Florence on foot with a Local Specialist, taking in the polychrome Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Giotto’s Bell Tower, and the Baptistery with its recreated Gates of Paradise. The square hums with street life and artisans, framed by medieval facades and Renaissance lines.

Wander into Piazza della Signoria, an open-air gallery of civic power and sculpture. Marvel at Neptune’s Fountain and heroic figures near Palazzo Vecchio while hearing how Medici patronage shaped art, architecture, and the urban imagination.

Stand beside Michelangelo’s ‘David’ at the Accademia Gallery and study the marble’s living anatomy, tense with civic pride. Your Local Specialist reveals the statue’s Renaissance ideals—virtu, proportion, and the humanist gaze—while tracing its creation from a flawed Carrara block.

Encounter the sculptor’s unfinished “Prisoners,” their forms seeming to wrestle free of stone. This is a Choice Highlight—select this included option at no additional cost to deepen your understanding of Florentine genius.

Join your Travel Director for a neighborhood stroll to a cafe beloved by residents and sample a classic Italian treat. Savor simple flavors—creamy gelato or a flaky pastry—while you meet your Travel Director and hear how locals weave food into everyday life.

Absorb the cadence of narrow streets and piazze as you connect with the everyday rhythms of Florence. This is a Choice Highlight—select this included option at no additional cost to experience the city through its tastes.

Cruise by private boat through quiet canals toward the heart of La Serenissima, gliding past age-softened facades and weathered brick campi. Watch the lagoon’s light dance on the water as domes and bell towers lift above the skyline.

Arrive near the wide sweep of St Mark’s Basin, where merchant galleys once anchored. Your journey frames Venice as a maritime republic—graceful palazzi, stone quays, and misty lagoon light telling the story of commerce and diplomacy afloat.

Join a guided orientation around St Mark’s Square to admire the golden mosaics of St Mark’s Basilica (exterior) and the pink-and-cream lacework of the Doge’s Palace. Gaze at the melancholic arch of the Bridge of Sighs, once linking palace to prison.

Stroll beneath the Procuratie arcades and continue toward the bustling Rialto Bridge, where market life and canal traffic animate Venice’s mercantile past. Stories of dukes, traders, and travelers reveal a city shaped by the sea—and sustained by ritual and beauty.

Ride a gondola along narrow back-canals where laundry flutters and footsteps echo on stone. Drift beneath low arched bridges as your gondolier steers with a single oar, the hull whispering against ancient walls.

Glide past Gothic Venetian palazzi with carved balconies and water doors, glimpsing quiet courtyards and sunlit reflections. The gentle rhythm of the lagoon sets a contemplative mood, revealing Venice at water level—intimate, timeless, and impossibly graceful.

Witness master artisans shape molten glass into elegant forms using techniques honed over centuries. In the glow of the furnace, canes, color, and breath become vases, beads, and delicate filigree—an art bound to Venice’s guild history.

Hear how the tradition of Murano glassmaking safeguarded secrets of chemistry and craft, fueling trade and prestige for the republic. This centuries-old craft endures through patient apprenticeship and a culture that prizes beauty made by hand.

Walk medieval lanes with a Local Specialist to the terraced heights of Assisi, where stone houses glow pink at sunset. Enter the Basilica of St Francis to contemplate Giotto’s frescoes, narrative cycles that reshaped European art with emotional realism.

In the valley, see St. Mary of the Angels, sheltering the modest Porziuncola chapel cherished by Franciscan tradition. Cobbled streets, incense, and pilgrims’ footsteps create a contemplative mood in this Umbrian hill town of faith and fresco.

Visit a family-run farm on the slopes of Vesuvius for a Farm-to-Table lunch celebrating seasonal produce and the celebrated Piennolo tomatoes. Learn how vines and vegetables thrive in volcanic soils rich with minerals and Mediterranean sun.

Hear about low-impact cultivation that protects biodiversity and the rural landscape, a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER experience aligned with sustainable practices. Taste preserves, cheeses, and oil where they’re grown, connecting flavors directly to the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and the families who tend them.

Cruise the Bay of Naples by jetfoil to the Isle of Capri, a limestone pinnacle rising from azure water. Ascend to Capri town for a guided wander through whitewashed lanes, leafy pergolas, and chic piazze lined with cafes and artisan boutiques.

Enjoy vistas over the Tyrrhenian Sea and hear of emperors and film stars drawn to the island’s clear light and cliff-framed coves. The Piazzetta buzzes with conversation, while fragrant lemon groves and sea breezes infuse the air.

Walk ancient streets in Pompeii with a Local Specialist, tracing cart ruts past shops, bakeries, and bathhouses preserved since the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. Public squares and private courtyards reveal daily rituals frozen in ash.

See the Forum of Pompeii, temples, and frescoed villas that illuminate Roman urban life—from religion and commerce to leisure and class. The site’s poignancy lies in its detail: painted walls, amphorae, and glimpses of citizens caught in a single catastrophic moment.

Dine in Rome with live opera as a curated selection of arias and canzoni pairs with regional dishes and wine. Candlelit tables, warm hospitality, and expressive voices bring Italy’s beloved melodies close at hand.

Between courses, savor beloved Italian arias that trace passion and humor from Verdi to Puccini. The evening blends Roman cuisine and wine with an intimate performance, celebrating a national art form where food, music, and conviviality meet.