World Class Travel & Tours

Italy Intro Page

Rome, Vatican, Naples, Capri, & Pompeii.

Palermo, Taormina, Mount Etna, & Alberobello.

Sistine Chapel, Coliseum, Cathedrals, & Temples.

Archaeological Sites, Picturesque Towns, & Majestic Caves.

Tours

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Italy

The history of Ancient Italy is really the history of Ancient Rome, and it is summarized in the page for Rome.

Italy is one of the most popular destinations of worldwide travelers. To see all of Italy takes at least a month. Most people choose to see Rome and the great cities in the north. These cities include Pisa, Florence, Verona, and Venice. Everyone should see these cities and the surrounding regions. However, often overlooked is the southern part of Italy including Sicily. This area is rich with history and contains magnificent ruins, beautiful scenery, attractive cathedrals, charming towns, important volcanoes, and impressive caves. Rome and Southern Italy are the subjects of these pages.

Escorted tour versus independent tour

Most of what we did on this tour of Italy could have been done as an independent tour on our own. Instead we chose to do an escorted tour for the following reasons:

1. Everything is planned to make sure that you have time to see the important sights. Even so, there is free time for you to do some things on your own.
2. It is a very relaxing way to travel. When traveling on the comfortable motor coach you just sit back and enjoy the scenery. There are frequent stops for snacks, the bathroom, or photo opportunities.
3. The tour director stays with you on the entire trip to coordinate everything and also tells you about the history of the country and places you visit. It is a great way to learn.
4. In cities, museums, archaeological sites, and other important places to visit you have the services of knowledgeable local guides. They can show you things that individuals are not allowed to see on their own.
5. You stay in nice hotels and the luggage is moved to your room and back to the motor coach for you.
6. You meet very interesting and nice people in your group, and it is not unusual for friendships to continue after your tour ends.
7. Most importantly, you get much more for your money as nearly everything is included in the escorted tour price. For an individual to pay for everything separately the total price would be much more.

Tour summary

We chose to do a Globus escorted tour. Globus has been around for more than seventy-five years, has a great reputation, quality tour conductors, and uses first class hotels. We spent two nights in Rome and Naples, one night on a ferry from Naples to Sicily, two nights in Palermo, Taormina, and Alberobello (in the boot of Italy), and one final night in Rome.

Highlights of the tour include the very popular Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, the Basilica, the Colosseum, and the Forum in Rome. The 1,200 rooms of the Reggia of Caserta and the Archaeological Museum in Naples are impressive. The Isle of Capri is beautiful. Pompeii is a large with magnificent ruins. Sicily is a fascinating place, and four nights were spent there. Highlights in Sicily are the Valley of Temples, the Dorian Temples and Acropolis, the Archaeological Site at Syracuse, and the excursion to Mount Etna. Alberobello is a delightful and fascinating city with its unique whitewashed dry stone circular houses called trulli. Nearby are the extremely impressive Caves of Castellana. Riding on the comfortable motor coach from place to place we saw many examples of beautiful landscapes as well as gorgeous beaches on the Mediterranean Sea such as at Sorrento.

Dinners

The dinners were in attractive and charming restaurants. Musicians performed at many of the dinners. It was a great way to relax with our new friends and discuss the fascinating places that we had been to and things that we had seen during the day.

Tour conductor, driver, & local guides

Our tour conductor, Carmine Aliperti, was with us throughout the entire tour, and he was outstanding. Everything was organized to perfection, and he had extensive knowledge of every place that we went to and all of the sights that we saw. We learned a lot. There were many different local guides in the cities, museums, and at the archeological sites. They were all outstanding. The driver of the motor coach was also great as he had to negotiate many narrow streets in many of the cities.

Italy pages

Details of the visits to Rome, Southern Italy (mainland), and Sicily with pictures are found in the links below for: Pompeii, Rome, Sicily, and Southern Italy. Although Pompeii is part of Southern Italy it is important enough to deserve a separate page.

Photos by Sunny Breeding. We sell images and prints.

Acknowledgments.

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