Travel Review: Tour of France, England & Italy, London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Positano, Seine River Cruise, Vespa Tour

My husband and I decided, last minute, to take a couple of extra weeks to see a bit of Europe after a business trip. We decided to use an agent to help plan the trip, as we only had a month before we were to leave and no time to research.  We usually book all of our own travel and were a little skeptical of the value a custom agent could provide. We found Zicasso, who referred several agents to us.  We settled on this travel planner and his company.  

Our trip included London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Positano (Amalfi Coast), and Rome.  We stayed an average of three nights in each location.  We told our travel planner were we wanted to go, and gave detailed info on the types of places we wanted to stay and activities we wanted to do.  He really listened to us and tried to get good understanding of who we are, what we would enjoy, and what we wanted out of this trip.  He was extremely responsive to our questions and then provided an itinerary with hotels, and sites to visit interspersed with other activities we would not have thought of. He worked with us to add and eliminate things until we had the trip and price we wanted. He provided a nice pace that was relaxed and gave a great mix of sites, guided tours, food events, cruises, etc.  We had a wonderful trip!!  

This was so much better than a packaged trip, as we were able to visit exactly where we wanted to go and see only the sites we cared about.  We also had plenty of free time to just enjoy being there and poke around. Robert also provided some small group tours as well as private guided time.  I was skeptical of the value for the money on these, but they turned out to be worth every cent and more.  The context and understanding they gave us in a short amount of time was wonderful. We came away with a much deeper, richer experience than expected.  He also recommended several activities that we would have never scheduled ourselves, and they turned out to be the highlights of our trip! We took a Seine River dinner cruise (not the usual commercial ones - a much smaller, better one), road Vespas on the Amalfi Coast, had a gourmet picnic in France, took a cruise to Capri island and swam in the Mediterranean, and had a small group dinner on a private home rooftop terrace in Rome (wonderful!).  Robert also met us in Venice and was our guide one evening, taking us to places off the beaten path and giving wonderful insight into this fascinating city.  

The expertise our travel planner provided in choosing the pace, mix of activities, tours, travel between locations (we used a mix of air, train, private cars and taxis), lodging and lodging location, and use of time was truly invaluable.  We ended up with an amazing trip that would have taken me months to plan and research, and I wouldn't have known of or added the very things we ended up enjoying most.  Every detail was well thought out and seamless.  When we had a couple of minor glitches (cancelled flight, and a missed train), our travel planner was immediately available and took care of everything for us while we continued on with our day.  We can't recommend this company and our travel planner highly enough and can't wait to use them again in the future!