Choose from a hand-picked selection of local restaurants for a Dine-Around Evening in the Italian Lakes. Each offers its own atmosphere and cuisine, giving you a choice of setting for an included dinner.

The lake district brings together alpine scenery and northern Italian food traditions. Rather than gathering the whole group around one menu, this experience lets you select a restaurant that suits your tastes while sharing the pleasure of dining locally.

Insight Vacations

• 5 Dinner (D)
• 10 Breakfast (B)

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

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

Meet your Travel Director over dinner with wine at a local Rome restaurant. Share a table with fellow travellers and get a first taste of the Italian tradition of taking time over a meal.

Rome’s neighbourhood restaurants offer a welcoming introduction to the city beyond its monuments. This hosted welcome dinner gives the group a chance to get acquainted while enjoying local food and conversation.

Explore the Vatican Museums with a Local Expert, discovering works gathered by successive popes across centuries. Enter the Sistine Chapel to admire Michelangelo’s painted ceiling, and see St. Peter’s Square at the heart of Vatican City.

The collections bring classical sculpture, Renaissance painting and papal history into one remarkable setting. If Vatican Museums tickets are unavailable, the included visit is replaced by the Capitoline Museums, whose collections illuminate the art and archaeology of ancient Rome.

Discover ancient Rome with a Local Expert as you see the vast Circus Maximus, the Arch of Constantine and the exterior of the Colosseum. Hear the stories behind the amphitheatre while viewing its monumental stone arches from outside.

These sites reveal different faces of Roman public life, from chariot racing to imperial triumphs and gladiatorial spectacles. The nearby Palatine Hill recalls the city’s legendary founding and provides a sense of how closely Rome’s great monuments were connected.

Walk Pompeii’s ancient streets with a Local Expert and examine the remains of homes, public baths and gardens. Look for mosaics and architectural details that reveal the routines of a Roman town before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Preserved beneath volcanic material for centuries, Pompeii offers an unusually direct view of first-century life. A chilled lemon granita brings a taste of the citrus grown around nearby Sorrento to this visit.

Explore Capri town with a Local Expert, walking narrow lanes lined with whitewashed buildings, cafés and artisan boutiques. Visit the Gardens of Augustus for sweeping views across the sea to the limestone Faraglioni rocks.

Capri’s dramatic coastline has drawn visitors since Roman emperors made the island a retreat. From the garden terraces, planted in the early 20th century, you can appreciate the contrast between cultivated flowers, steep cliffs and the deep blue Tyrrhenian Sea.

Choose to visit Florence’s Accademia Gallery and stand before Michelangelo’s David. See the scale and finely observed anatomy of the marble sculpture in person, alongside works that shed light on the artist’s creative process.

Completed in the early 16th century, David became a symbol of Florence’s civic identity as well as a defining work of Renaissance sculpture. This is one of two included Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the local-treat experience.

Choose a short walk with your Travel Director to a Florence spot popular with residents. Sample a classic Italian treat and hear how it became part of local everyday life.

This small-scale food experience offers a way to encounter Florence through familiar flavours rather than famous monuments. It is one of two included Insight Choice activities; travellers select it instead of the Accademia Gallery visit. The specific treat is not stated in the tour details.

Walk Florence with a Local Expert through Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Signoria. Admire the cathedral, Giotto’s bell tower, the baptistery’s celebrated doors and sculptures that give the civic square its open-air gallery character.

See the historic Santa Croce neighbourhood and watch a leatherwork and gold craftsmanship demonstration. Together, the streets and workshops show how artistic ambition and skilled making have shaped Florence from the Renaissance to the present.

Explore the Cinque Terre with a Local Expert, approaching a fishing village by boat for views of colourful buildings set against steep coastal slopes. Spend time among village lanes, with opportunities to see a medieval quarter or enjoy the waterfront.

This UNESCO World Heritage landscape reflects generations of fishing and hillside cultivation along the Ligurian coast. The tour highlights describe visits to two villages, while the daily itinerary specifically details a boat approach to one; village access may vary.

Visit Portofino’s harbour, where pastel-coloured houses frame the water and yachts moor beside the village. Browse its boutiques or pause at a café on the piazzetta to take in the seaside setting.

Once a Ligurian fishing village, Portofino retains a compact waterfront even as it has become a byword for Italian Riviera style. Its sheltered inlet and densely clustered houses make the harbour itself the focus of this visit.

Visit a family-owned winery in Franciacorta, near Lake Iseo, and learn about a winemaking tradition passed between generations. Taste the estate’s vintages with a master vintner who can explain the character of the wines.

Franciacorta is particularly known for its sparkling wines, made in a region of vineyards along the southern edge of the Alps. The estate visit connects the flavours in the glass with the people and place behind them.

Travel by boat along the Giudecca Canal as your Travel Director introduces Venice from the water. Look towards centuries-old palazzi and the landmarks around St. Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace.

Waterways have long served as Venice’s streets, making a boat journey a revealing way to understand the city’s layout. From the canal, grand facades and busy waterfronts show how the maritime republic presented its wealth to arriving visitors.

Visit St. Mark’s Square to see the richly decorated exterior of St. Mark’s Basilica and admire the nearby Doge’s Palace and Bridge of Sighs. Take in the architecture of Venice’s ceremonial centre without an interior visit being specified.

The basilica’s Byzantine influences speak to Venice’s trading connections, while the palace recalls the government of the former maritime republic. Together, these buildings express the city’s historic power in stone, arches and gilded detail.

Glide through Venice’s canals by gondola, passing beneath bridges and beside water-lapped doorways and historic palaces. Settle into the low boat as your gondolier navigates waterways that reveal the city at a slower pace.

Gondolas have carried passengers through Venice for centuries. Their close-to-the-water perspective brings details of facades, reflections and canal-side life into view; the itinerary also describes this ride as serenaded.

Visit a traditional glassblowing workshop in Venice and watch expert artisans shape heated glass into handcrafted objects. Learn about the techniques required to control a material that changes form rapidly in the furnace’s heat.

Venetian glassmaking has been closely associated with the lagoon for centuries, particularly with the island of Murano. Seeing the craft practised makes its delicate finished pieces easier to appreciate and offers a glimpse of skills preserved by specialist makers.

Cruise across the Venetian lagoon to Burano, an island known for its brightly painted houses and fishing heritage. Sit down with fellow travellers for an included dinner with wine featuring local specialities.

Burano offers a different view of lagoon life from Venice’s grand palaces: narrow canals, vivid facades and a close connection to the water. The boat journey and hosted meal make this a distinctive island dining experience rather than a standard hotel dinner.

Choose an optional cruise across the Tyrrhenian Sea to Positano with your Local Expert, with time ashore to explore. From the water, take in the steep coastline before walking among the town’s lanes and seafront.

Positano’s houses climb the slopes above the shore, creating one of the Amalfi Coast’s most recognisable views. This Optional Experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; its operating details depend on the arrangements available during your trip.

Choose an optional visit to San Gimignano, the Tuscan hill town celebrated for its surviving medieval towers. Explore its stone streets and squares, where the skyline recalls the prominence of its merchant families.

San Gimignano’s historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, valued for its remarkably preserved medieval character. This excursion provides a contrast to Florence’s Renaissance streets. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour; specific visits or admissions are not stated.

Choose an optional cruise to the Borromean Islands on Lake Maggiore. Enjoy views across the water towards the islands and the mountain-framed shores of Italy’s lake district.

The islands are known for their historic association with the Borromeo family and their landscaped settings, though the tour details do not specify which islands or interiors this cruise visits. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour, subject to the arrangements offered locally.

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