quote:

Originally posted by CAT612:
Bren,

We just got back from this tour (Oct 7 - 23). It was an incredible experience. To answer your questions:

Does it cover good areas of Italy? The quick answer is yes. You really get a chance to see the difference in the landscape and the different regions.

Is the hotel in Florence good? In my opinion it was fine. We were at the Sheraton. It is a large hotel so it was a walk to get from our room to the elevator/stairs. Our room was what I would call a normal size hotel room. We had plenty of room and the bathroom was good sized. Over all we had good experiences at the hotels.

Is this trip nicely paced with leisure time? I would say yes. We went on every optional, and still had free time to do some of our own exploring. Loved the fact that we had a whole day to explore Venice.

Sorrento & Amalfi coast region, are the views great? Yes. We did the Amalfi coast in the morning and it was beautiful. We did have haze so we couldn't see the other islands. But since it was clear and sunny we got great pictures of the coast line. We went down into Positano which is a great town, just be prepared because it is all down hill and then you get to walk back up. Be sure to try the Lemoncello, my husband loved it.

I am working on my journal and will be posting it under "Tour Tales" when I finish. I will put some of our pics out too.

Overall Comments:

We had Debra as our Tour Director. You will be so lucky if you get her. She is incredible and her knowledge and love of Italy made our trip. We did every optional (I will detail them in my journal) and were glad that we did them. Be prepared to walk everywhere, and most of the time it is uphill. Debra warned us the first night, we would get buns of steel. She wasn't kidding. They aren't joking when they say "hill top" towns.