Additional Included Highlights

• Our highly-skilled Travel Director will ensure your journey is seamless, serving as your expert guide, consummate organiser, and friend overseas.
• Personal radio headsets give you the freedom to wander during visits to famous highlights, without missing any of your Local Expert's fascinating commentary.
• We carry your bags for you and promptly deliver them to your hotel door.
• Hotel and restaurant tips are included - you'll never have to worry about how much to give, nor search for foreign currency. We also include all taxes and porterage charges at hotels.
• Stay connected with friends and family with our complimentary coach and hotel Wi-Fi (where available).
• From time to time, your Travel Director will delight you with an Insight Flourish, which is a local specialty representing the destination.
• If your arrival and/or departure flights are as per the itinerary start and end dates, then transfers are available at scheduled times. If your flights are outside these times, or you have booked additional nights accommodation with Insight Vacations, you may purchase transfers or make your own way from/to the airport.

Choice Highlights

• Choose between two carefully selected activities
• Florence: Stand beside Michelangelo's monumental statue, 'David', in the Accademia Gallery, and admire the exquisite technique and absorbing history behind the world's most famous sculpture.
• Florence: Wander through the market stalls and browse for local Italian souvenirs and leather goods on a guided shopping tour.

Well-being

• : Our Well-Being Directors take a proactive approach to your welfare ensuring all well-being regulations are met (available on tours with 21 or more guests).
• : Enjoy the comfort of Insight's luxurious, air-conditioned, 40-seat coach with double the standard legroom and onboard washroom. Our customized luxury coaches are sanitized before the start of your tour and are maintained to very high standards. Physical distancing measures have been implemented on our customized luxury coaches.
• : Experience enhanced hygiene protocols to align with the latest guidance following COVID-19.All Travel Directors, Well-Being Directors and Drivers have completed training in enhanced well-being and hygiene protocols.
• : We only work with establishments we are confident will consistently adhere to our high well-being standards, which include hotels, restaurants and sight-seeing venues.
• : Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

Travel Director

• : "One food I really love introducing my guests to is tramezzini sandwiches because they are a real art form in Venice. For the locals it is a quick inexpensive bite to get them through the day...best eaten standing up at the bar!"
• : "Venice is so unique that anyone seeing it for the first time is never fully prepared for the magic, from seeing their first gondola to the facade of St. Mark’s Cathedral."
• : "Italians are very fashionable but their cooking is the opposite - simple, rustic and down to earth. A handful of quality vegetables, fresh herbs and beans are turned into a warm and comforting soup."

Authentic Dining

• Montelupo Fiorentino: Taste a nutritious meal at Rome's welcome dinner. The venue adopts a flexiterian philosophy; to them, sustainable consumption and healthy meals is what's important.
• Vatican: Experience an exclusive VIP Highlight Dinner at the Vatican's Cortile del Giardino Quadrato, whilst enjoying views of the cupola of St. Peters, should weather permit.
• San Gimignano: Ascend serpentine alleyways to the artisan gelato parlour of world champion gelato maestro, Sergio Dondoli for a taste of his finest frozen treats.
• Tuscany: In the Tuscan countryside, where deep-green cypress trees pierce blue skies and olive groves hug the rolling hillsides, taste the wines of an eminent estate.
• Lucca: Visit a traditional steam bakery and sample Buccellato, the sweet raisin bread typical of the region.
• Cinque Terre: Savour a freshly-prepared sea-to-table meal, made of locally sourced, seasonal ingredients typical of the region.
• Veneto: Visit a local winery and delight in a tasting of their magnificent prosecco. Meet the vignerons and learn how to make the perfect Bellini.
• Venice: Enjoy a special Venetian Celebration Dinner with wine at La Fenice, situated in the heart of this historic city.
• Dining Summary: 6 Dinner with Wine (DW), 11 Breakfast (B), and 1 Lunch with Wine (LW)

Top Rated Highlights

• Rome: During your orientation with you Travel Director see the medieval buildings, including Renaissance palaces and Baroque churches, scattered throughout the city.
• Florence: Stand beside Michelangelo's monumental statue, 'David', in the Accademia Gallery, and admire the exquisite technique and absorbing history behind the world's most famous sculpture.
• Florence: Wander through the market stalls and browse for local Italian souvenirs and leather goods on a guided shopping tour.
• Florence: Enjoy panoramic views over of the city and see the Florence Cathedral. During your guided walking orientation, see the bell tower, Gates of Paradise on the baptistery and visit Piazza della Signoria.
• San Gimignano: Visit the medieval Manhattan of Italy!
• Lucca: Your orientation with your Travel Director will show you the churches, squares and palaces within the medieval ramparts.
• Pisa: During your orientation, your Travel Director will show you the baptistery bristling with marble spines, and the colonnaded bell tower lurches behind the 11th century cathedral - the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.
• Cinque Terre: Led by your Local Expert, visit this unique UNESCO World Heritage Site, tucked away on the mountainous Italian Riviera coastline. Explore one of the five charming fishing villages for some memorable pictures.
• Portofino: Cruise from Santa Margherita and get a taste of the sweet life in this elegant fishing village.
• Portofino: Visit this elegant fishing village and admire the coloured houses and yachts moored in the harbour.
• Cortina d'Ampezzo: Enjoy the stunning scenery of the Cortina, a small town framed by magnificent alps as your Travel Director conducts an orientation.
• Venice: Delight in the magic of this charming city as you are serenaded, travelling through the atmospheric canals by gondola.

Insight Experiences

• Vatican: Gain priority access into the Vatican Museums, witness the genius of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel and view the splendid dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

Make Travel Matter

• Venice: Witness the ancient skill of glassblowing, now practised by precious few masters. Watch artisans create delicate works of art using rare traditional practices. The workshop's master craftsmen teach visitors about the traditional craft of glassblowing and its history which dates back to the 15th century. Every visit helps to support the workshop and the survival of this traditional craft. The workshop advances UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.