About Taste of Italy
In Italy you can visit Roman ruins, view Renaissance art, stay in tiny villages, explore the canals of Venice and gaze at beautiful churches. You can also indulge in the pleasures of la dolce vita : good food, good wine and improving your wardrobe.
This eight-day trip will show us the highlight cities of Italy, covering it all from St. Peter’s, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and the Forum in Rome to Michelangelo’s David in Florence, and St. Mark’s Basilica and Doges’ Palace with the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Local Guides in these cities will answer all our questions. Also included are stops in Pisa to admire the Leaning Tower and in Verona to see Juliet’s Balcony. Scenic drives will show you the Tyrrhenian Coast, the Lombardian Planes, the flat Po area, the wooded Etruscan Apennine mountain range and Tuscany’s Chianti wine country. In Venice a private boat ride and a glass blowers’ demonstration are included.
Inclusive Features of Our Tour:
- 6 Nights First Class Hotel Accommodations.
- Visits with Tours in the Following Cities:
- ROME – Welcome dinner; guided sightseeing including headsets; visit St. Peter’s Square and Basilica, Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, Colosseum, and Roman Forum
- FLORENCE – Guided sightseeing including headsets; visit the cathedral, Michelangelo’s David, and Signoria Square
- VENICE – Private boat ride; guided sightseeing including headsets; visit St. Marks Square and Basilica, Doges’ Palace, and the Bridge of Sighs; glass blowers’ demonstration
- CHIANTI COUNTRY – Panoramic drive
- 7 buffet breakfasts (BB); 1 three-course dinner (D), including a special welcome dinner with wine in Rome
- Company of Other Singles
No minimum required for this tour. Our Solo Super Savers are winter departures that offer an excellent value and no single supplement (space limited). In the event that we have less than 20 guests, the tour may not be exclusively single and an STI director will not host. But that’s no reason not to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. A professional, local tour director will lead the program.
Ages listed are not meant as a restriction, but are simply used as a guideline. Singles Travel International does not guarantee the number of guests, ages or ratios.
Itinerary
Day 1 – Sunday, March 15, 2009
We’ll board our overnight transatlantic flights
Day 2- Monday, March 16, 2009
We arrive in Rome, Italy
It’s time to rest or start exploring the Eternal City. At 6 pm we’ll meet our Tour Director and traveling companions. We’ll depart the hotel for a special welcome dinner with wine at one of Rome’s lively restaurants.
(Included: Dinner)
Day 3 – Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Rome
This morning we’ll enjoy touring ancient Rome with our Local Guide, where Roman legions marched in triumph. Our stops will include the Colesseum and the Roman Forum. Then, we’ll have time for independent activities and exciting optional excursion possibilities.
Story about the Colesseum:
“Thanks to Hollywood recreations such as Gladiator, nothing symbolizes the cruelty of Imperial Rome as much as the Colosseum. In truth, the games held there were even more extreme and theatrical than modern film directors dare to suggest. A day at the Empire’s most famous arena was a total entertainment package, mixing bouts of savage violence with solemn religious pageantry, sexual titillation, slapstick comedy and kitschy stage shows.”
Story about the Roman Forum:
“Visitors can be a little confused by the Roman Forum; at first glance, it is a rather lifeless array of marble fragments. But we must remember that in ancient times, this space was far more than the temples and monuments whose ruins we can explore today. It was filled with bustling, noisy life as the popular crossroads of the city – the predecessor, in fact, of the modern Italian piazza. Every morning at dawn, average Romans would escape their cramped, dark apartment blocks (called insulae, or “islands”) and spent their days outdoors.”
(Included: Breakfast)
Day 4 – Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Rome and Florence
Today we start with a guided tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel , world famous for Michelangelo’s ceiling paintings and The Last Judgement. Next, we’ll visit monumental St. Peters Square and Basilica. In the early afternoon, we drive along the Highway of the Sun north into Tuscany and its hill-clad vineyards which house the famous Chianti wine. Then on to Florence, the “Cradle of the Renaissance”.
Story about the Vatican Museums:
“In the early 1500s, Rome was full of neglected ruins from the days of the ancient Empire, which still contained artworks buried amongst the rubble. The Renaissance had seen a sudden growth of interest in all things classical, and the popes – cultivated men who were in touch with the intellectual currents of the day – were the richest art collectors in Italy. They began offering substantial cash rewards for any sculptures, until Rome was scoured by freelance treasure hunters on the hunt for pagan masterpieces. The most dramatic discovery occurred in 1506, when a Roman father-and-son team of excavators reported a promising find near the ruined Baths of Titus. The artist Michelangelo himself excitedly hurried over to help with the work, followed by the pope’s official agent, Guiliano da Sangallo. When the excavators brushed away the dirt of 1,000 years, they found an enormous marble sculpture, perfectly intact, of a muscular Trojan hero being attacked by giant snakes. Guilano cried out in amazement, “This is the very Laocoön described by (the ancient Roman author) Pliny!” The sculpture was carted off to the Vatican Museum.”
(Included: Breakfast)
Day 5 – Thursday, March 19, 2009
Florence
We follow our Local Guide to the Academy of Fine Art with Michelangelo’s celebrated David and the magnificent Cathedral. We’ll admire Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Baptistry’s heavy bronze “Gate of Paradise,” and sculpture-studded Signoria Square.
Story about La Piazza Della Signora:
“What’s the best vantage point to ponder the most illustrious town square in Florence, the Signoria? An outdoor table in the venerable Caffè Rivoire – preferably over a delicious, if not painfully expensive cioccolata con pane, a dark and mud-thick hot chocolate. Late at night, when the crowds have gone, you can search the long shadows and imagine that very little has changed here since the 1400s. The Signoria is the most elegant sculpture garden in Europe. Masterpieces include the splendid Neptune Fountain by Ammannati, Hercules and Cacus by Bandinelli and a precise copy of Michelangelo’s David, all strategically poised in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. This grand public space has been the centerpiece of Florence since the 15th Century, the golden age when the city was established as the most beautiful in Europe. Eminent merchants in their ostentatious finery met here to discuss business in the midst of Florence’s raucous daily life.”
This afternoon we’ll be at leisure. If you are interested in shopping, Florentine leather goods and gold jewelry sold by the ounce are attractive buys. You may wish to join an optional dinner outing to a fine Tuscan restaurant and try out the Chianti wines.
(Included: Breakfast)
Day 6 – Friday, March 20, 2009
Florence – Venice
Through the wooded Apennine Hills and the lush plains of the River Po, the largest river in Italy, to Venice, a powerful magnet for romantics and art lovers from around the globe. We’ll enter in style by Private Boat to meet our Local Guide. Highlights of our walking tour are St. Mark’s Square and the byzantine Balisilca, lavish Doges Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. We’ll Also watch skilled Glassblowers fashion their delicate objects in an age-old traditional manner.
Story about the Bridge of Sighs:
“The world’s most poetically-named bridge, Il Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, was built in 1614 so that prisoners of the Venetian state could be transferred in secret from the Doge’s Palace to the so-called Nuovi Prigioni, or New Prisons. The wistful name was actually conceived by the English poet Lord Byron in the early 1800s that imagined the horror of prisoners taking their last glimpse of Venice before going underground to captivity. “
(Included: Breakfast)
Day 7 – Saturday, March 21, 2009
At Leisure in Venice
We’ll have the whole day to explore Venice on our own. Join the locals, have a cappuccino at a sidewalk café, or wander through the narrow streets and discover Rialto Bridge. To top it all, why not join an optional cruise to the charming island of Burano, followed by a dinner of local specialties to celebrate the success of your Italian vacation?
(Included: Breakfast)
Day 8 – Sunday, March 22, 2009
Our homebound flight from Venice arrives the same day. Have a safe journey home!
(Included: Breakfast)
