Travel Review: Trip to Italy, Vatican City, Rome, Florence, Venice, Verona, Tuscany, Cinque Terre, Amalfi Coast

Overall the trip was fine.  I will probably not tour Europe in July again.  After all, I do not have to go that distance to experience uncomfortable temperatures and humidity. 

All hotels were excellent.  Except for the Amalfi Coast all were generally small and provided a much more personal experience.  The hotel was excellent but not nearly as personal.  It, however, had the most impressive view most of the time.  The humidity level did impede distinguishing where the water and sky met.

The personal (one on one) tours arranged in Rome, Florence and those in the Amalfi area were some of the best I had. The group tours were not nearly as effective due to two significant elements.  The groups were very large and it took quite a bit of attention to keep together.  There were generally several other large groups that kept mingling with the ones I was on.  This made it quite difficult to see significant details of the tour.  I my view, the one on one is the best but there is a compromise that I think would work.  Find an organization that offers smaller groups such as no more than ten or fifteen tourists.

Except for Venice and Florence, it was convenient to navigate to the group tour meeting place.  In Venice, the meeting place was in a good location BUT for someone who has never been to Venice, finding it for the FIRST time is no easy task.  Locals tend to minimize the situation and the need to keep asking other locals how to find the meeting point did not result in making it any easier.  Fortunately, I decided to find it the day before and then knew how to find it the next day.  If the travel arrangements were as originally planned, I would have arrived in Venice quite late and would not have been able to navigate in time for the tour the next day.  I was able to get an earlier train thus giving me time to explore on the day of arrival.  It seems to me that a very detailed means to get from the hotel provided to the meeting point, using the excellent ferry system, is needed.  Also in Venice, the number of tours scheduled for one day was way to many.  As a result, I was not able to take the Gondola ride since it departed about two hours before the previous tour ended and the walk from that one to the Gondola was about 30 minutes.  Perhaps I could have taken a later ride but doing so would have resulted in getting off of the Gondola probably around 8 or 9 PM and then having to get dinner and work my way back to the hotel would have resulted in getting to hotel around 11 PM.  Not too much thought went into the Venice arrangements.

In Florence, the hotel was not close to the tour meeting point at all.  After speaking with the private tour guide and the hotel, I took the bus and arrived in time.  I could have taken a taxi but that cost is quite high.  After I got on the tour, I found out that the tour company offers hotel pick up as a part of the tour cost.  I used this on subsequent days.  The return to hotel was offered at 6 euros so getting to and from the hotel would have been no issue.  The travel agency did not research this sufficiently to facilitate the transfer to and from the hotel for tours.  The transportation to and from the train station was fine, however. 

There was another issue with the group tours in Florence.  The document showing the actual tours for Florence was accurate but the individual voucher for each of the tours (one for the first day and the other the next) were reversed.  I used only took with me to the tours location the vouchers.  The tour company did not notice the error until I took advantage of hotel pick up for the next day.  That was when the tour company saw the error.  Fortunately they were able to substitute another half day tour at no additional cost to me.  For my free day in Florence, I decided to take another full day tour at my cost and they gave me a discount off of the full price.

For one tour from my hotel on the Amalfi coast, the pick up did not happen as scheduled.  I called my agent and then received a call about 20 minutes later from the pick up service.  The person informed me about some car issue.  I informed her that she should have called me at the hotel informing me of the almost two hour delay.  Fortunately the tour was a half day and the delay just resulted in extending the tour the same amount.

There was another issue on the day of arrival in Rome relative to the train to Venice.  The time from arrival in Rome to scheduled train departure from Rome airport was intentionally set due to possible significant delays in the arrival process at the airport.  Since the arrival process took much less time, I checked on the possibility of getting an earlier train.  In doing so, the person at the train informed me that the document I had was not valid and therefore could not be exchanged for an earlier train and that they might accept it on the train originally scheduled.  This presented a dilemma.  If the train conductor would not accept what was told to me as an invalid voucher, getting to Venice would have been greatly delayed.  So, I decided to buy an ticket from Rome airport to Venice for the earlier train and seek reimbursement.  I called the travel agency and advised what had happened and what I did to get to Venice.  My agent was convinced that the voucher was valid but quite candidly, the people at the train company seemed to be more reliable (they operate the trains) than my agent in London.   When I spoke to him, he immediately agreed to the reimbursement.

Transportation to from train/hotels were reliable except for the last day from the hotel to airport in Rome.  Since all previous pick up transportation to train/airport were very reliable, I did not expect any issue for the last day when the transportation was extremely critical.  The pick up time was scheduled for 6:30 AM.  I had my bags in front of the hotel and I was standing outside the entrance starting at 6:10 AM.  By 6:35 AM there was no pick up.  I decided to take a taxi and requested one that took credit cards since I was able to spend the remaining euros.  The taxi arrived (accepting credit cards) at 7:00 AM and I did get to the airport and check in with 15 minutes prior to actual boarding.  I did leave a message with the travel agency and told them what I did.  Upon getting home, I sent my agent an e-mail and he was surprised at the event.  He told me that he personally checked on the scheduled time but the service had some confusion and they arrived at the hotel at 7:30 AM.  I had the travel agency telephone number that I used several times prior to leaving for Italy in my cell phone.  I did notice when I got home that there were other numbers to call  and it was my error not reading the details.  I doubt that I would have done anything differently relative to the initial train mix up nor the transportation to the Rome airport.  My agent did say that if I did use the London number that he could have had the taxi charged to his account.  Quite candidly, I think the course I decided on to get a taxi directly probably resulted in me getting my flight.  I could not have risked further delays.

My agent was very concerned with what difficulties I had and I have been reimbursed for the expenses of the train and airport expenses as well as a bit more. 

I would probably use this company again but have more detailed discussions on group tours as well as telephone calls by me to confirm travel arrangements on site.