• 4 Dinner (D)
• 9 Breakfast (B)

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

• Milan: Get to know your fellow travellers over a special dinner with wine.
• Conegliano: Visit a local winery to taste regional prosecco and meet the vignerons who guide its production. Learn how this distinctive style has developed its own identity alongside France’s well-known counterpart and enjoy the shared experience of discovering a craft rooted in the Veneto. 
• Baveno: Choose your dining experience from a selection of hand-picked local restaurants, each with its own setting and regional flavours. It’s a relaxed evening to enjoy good food and easy conversation within your small group. 
• Lake Maggiore: Gather on the shores of Lake Maggiore to toast your journey, sharing a farm-to-table dinner and local wines in a relaxed final evening. 

• Milan: Join your small group and a local historian to explore Milan’s history, including the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. Walk to the facade of Milan Cathedral and the world-famous La Scala Theatre as the city’s story takes shape around you.  
• Bolzano: Step inside the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology to see Otzi the Iceman, one of the world’s most remarkable archaeological discoveries. Preserved in ice for more than 5,000 years, this Copper Age mummy offers a rare glimpse into prehistoric life in the Alps, from the tools he carried to the clothing he wore.

Choose from a selection of hand-picked local restaurants in Baveno for a dine-around evening with your small group. Each setting offers its own character and regional flavours, making dinner a personal way to experience this Lake Maggiore town.

Baveno’s cobbled lanes and lakeside setting lend the evening a relaxed atmosphere. Conversation over local food offers time to connect with fellow travellers while discovering the character of the Italian Lakes beyond their waterfront views.

Discover the soaring peaks and dramatic mountain scenery of the Dolomites on an optional Grand Tour from the Bolzano area. The experience offers a closer look at the landscapes that form South Tyrol’s distinctive backdrop.

The Dolomites are known for their pale rock faces, steep profiles and changing light. This additional-cost experience is bookable on tour; the specific route and stops are not detailed in the itinerary.

Savour regional dishes in an atmospheric Alpine setting on an optional evening dinner near Bolzano. It is a chance to experience South Tyrol through its food as well as its mountain scenery.

The region’s cuisine reflects its meeting of Italian and Austrian traditions, giving a mountain meal a character distinct from dining elsewhere on the tour. This additional-cost experience is bookable on tour; the restaurant and menu are not specified.

Insight Vacations

Explore central Milan with a local historian, tracing the city’s story through the marble facade of the Duomo, the celebrated La Scala Theatre and the glass-covered Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The walk brings Milan’s grand public spaces into focus without promising entry to the buildings.

Hear how art, commerce and performance shaped the city, including the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. The cathedral’s elaborate Gothic exterior and the 19th-century shopping arcade reveal different chapters of Milanese ambition.

Meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over a welcome dinner with wine at a local restaurant in Milan. It is a chance to get to know your small group around the table rather than in the bustle of the city streets.

Italian dining invites conversation to unfold over a shared evening. The restaurant setting offers an introduction to Milan’s food culture and a welcoming start to the journey together.

Watch Venetian artisans shape molten glass at a working glassblowing workshop. See the precision involved as heat and practiced movements transform the material into handcrafted pieces, and learn about the techniques the artisans preserve.

Glassmaking has been closely associated with Venice for centuries, particularly with the island of Murano. Seeing the craft at work offers a closer understanding of the skill behind an art form that remains part of the lagoon’s identity.

Glide through Venice’s canals by gondola, passing beneath historic bridges and alongside palaces as your gondolier navigates the waterways. From the low seat of the boat, the city’s stone facades and waterside entrances come into view at close range.

The gondola is a long-standing symbol of Venetian travel, shaped for movement through the lagoon city’s narrow channels. Its unhurried pace offers a quieter perspective on streets built around water rather than roads.

Gather near the shores of Lake Maggiore for a farm-to-table dinner paired with Italian wines. Share a final evening of food and conversation with your small group in the lake district.

The menu’s focus on ingredients and local flavours makes this more than a routine hotel meal. With the lake and surrounding mountains close by, the setting brings together the produce, wine and easy sociability of northern Italy.

Explore Verona’s elegant squares and see the Roman Arena, an ancient amphitheatre still used for opera. With your Travel Director, choose a walk featuring Dante’s statue and the Scala family tombs or a Shakespeare-focused route connected to Romeo and Juliet.

The two routes illuminate different sides of Verona: the power of its medieval rulers and the literary romance that made the city famous worldwide. Cobbled streets and layered architecture keep its long history visible at every turn.

Discover Trento’s historic streets and squares, where stone-built heritage sits alongside the rhythms of a modern northern Italian city. Take in the local character that distinguishes this Alpine gateway from the larger cities of the plains.

Trento’s setting in the Adige Valley has long connected Italian and central European worlds. Its streetscapes offer a sense of that cultural meeting point, framed by the mountains rising beyond the city.

Explore Bolzano’s Tyrolean-influenced streets and squares beneath a Dolomite backdrop, and visit the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology to see Otzi the Iceman. The museum presents the preserved Copper Age mummy alongside objects that shed light on his life.

Discovered in the Otztal Alps, Otzi survived in ice for more than 5,000 years. His clothing and equipment offer an unusually tangible encounter with prehistoric Alpine life, while Bolzano’s bilingual culture reflects the region’s later cross-border history.

Visit a local winery near Conegliano to meet the people behind its prosecco and taste the region’s crisp, aromatic wine. Learn about the winemaking process and how prosecco’s character and production differ from Champagne.

Conegliano lies in Veneto wine country, where vineyard-covered hills benefit from Alpine shelter and warmer air from the Adriatic. Meeting the producers connects the glass in your hand to the landscape and craft that shape it.

Travel by private boat along the Giudecca Canal as your Travel Director introduces Venice from the water. Pass centuries-old palazzi and churches, with views towards the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Square.

Venice was built around its waterways, making a boat journey a fitting way to appreciate its architecture and maritime past. The shifting view from the canal reveals the scale and detail of buildings that once signalled the wealth of the Venetian Republic.

Take in the landmarks around St. Mark’s Square, including the exterior of St. Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, and see the Bridge of Sighs. This is an opportunity to appreciate Venice’s ceremonial heart; entry to these buildings is not specified.

The basilica’s Byzantine-influenced architecture and the palace’s ornate facade speak to the city’s former reach across the Mediterranean. Together, the square and waterfront offer a concentrated view of Venice’s religious, political and trading history.

Pause in Sirmione on Lake Garda to see its pastel-coloured buildings, shimmering water and the stone walls of its lakeside castle. The town’s setting on a narrow peninsula gives the stop a striking sense of place.

Known as Scaligero Castle, the fortress reflects the medieval power of the Scala family, who also shaped nearby Verona. Views of its walls against the lake connect the region’s history with the scenery that has drawn visitors to Garda for generations.

Walk through Como’s waterfront and narrow lanes on an orientation that reveals the town’s defining landmarks and everyday life. Take in views across Lake Como towards the Alpine foothills as you explore.

Como has a long association with fine silk, while the lake has attracted visitors to its shores for centuries. The walk pairs the town’s working identity with the waterside scenery that made the Italian Lakes a sought-after retreat.

Explore Lake Como in greater depth with a Local Specialist on an optional experience. Gain further insight into a landscape of lakeside towns and Alpine foothills beyond the included orientation walk in Como.

The lake’s waterfronts and long history as a retreat give the specialist-led exploration a rich setting. This additional-cost experience is bookable on tour; its precise route, visits and transport are not specified in the itinerary.

Cruise Lake Maggiore to the Borromean Islands on an optional excursion that includes Isola Bella, known for its elegant palace and terraced gardens. See how the islands’ architecture and cultivated grounds sit within the lake’s mountain-framed waters.

Isola Bella takes its name from the Borromeo family, whose grand vision transformed the island into a formal lakeside retreat. This additional-cost experience is bookable on tour; the itinerary does not specify which interiors or gardens are entered.