Italy Travel Review: Rome, Florence, San Gimignano, Positano, Capri, Vernazza, Venice Gondola Ride, Cinque Terre Hiking

I am usually a person that likes to plan and map out my trips myself. With the destination being Italy though and not having any first hand knowledge or even friends that have visited more than just the big centers, I decided I would get help. I am so glad I did. From the beginning when I received the two itineraries the one from this travel agency was far better. The other company was local to me so was really leaning towards it, but the contact and follow-up from this company lead me to choose them.

The trip was for a 3 week 20th anniversary vacation and we wanted to pack in as much as possible. Yes I wanted to see the big cities and the big tourist sites in Rome, Florence, Venice, but I also wanted time in the smaller villages and more out of the way locations. I also wanted to complete a bucket list item and drive a Lamborghini!

Working with our agent, I told her that I would rather not stay in hotels but do the bed and breakfast places wherever possible. I find throughout Europe for the B&B to be far superior in offering really beautiful settings and you get to experience more of the culture. All the B&Bs she found ranged from nice to really outstanding. We did have 1 hotel in Capri which was a nice hotel but I would still rank it bellow the B&Bs. We were almost a year in planning the trip and the amount of time our agent put in arranging our trip was huge. With 9 different accommodations, trains, drivers, rental car and all the tours, excursions and skip the line museum passes I am very impressed how smooth things went.

Our only rough spot was at the very start. This agency does not do the flight booking so I had done that. We had a great direct flight but my luggage did not arrive. With only a couple of days at each destination I was worried that I would not have my luggage. It was a struggle also to get a working phone trying to get the sim card working with my old unlocked Blackberry. We had to wait until we got into a bigger center before I even bought the card. This made trying to keep in contact with the airline and find my luggage very difficult. Again our agent really came through for us dealing with the airline and getting my luggage delivered to me on route.