Cultural tours in Italy

Between 10–22 participants can usually join our small group tours, though the upper limit can be lower dependent on the tour.

Solo travellers are certainly welcome on all small group tours to Italy and often make up a majority of our participants. Our experienced tour managers will make sure everyone is properly introduced. There’s a lot to share, and conversation comes naturally as a result.

Read more about solo travel with Martin Randall Travel.

All of our Italy tours are led by experts in the field, including historians, archaologists and journalists. Among those leading opera tours in 2025/2026 include art historian Dr Thomas-Leo True and food critic Marc Millon.

In the traveller’s perfect world, everyone would be charged the same amount for their room, whether they were alone or sharing with a partner. In the hotelier’s perfect world, all rooms would cost the same, whether they had one, two, three or ten people sleeping there. The world we live in is closer to the hotelier’s vision, where rooms cost the same regardless of occupancy. Two people can split the cost of a £100 room, paying £50 each, or one person can pay the full £100. When expressed as a per person cost, this looks like a £50 supplement.

We negotiate hard with hotels, to keep single-occupancy prices as low as possible, but as long as hoteliers charge per room and not per person, this iniquitous situation will endure. The only obvious alternative – having couples subsidise solo travellers – strikes us as even more unfair.

Martin Randall Travel makes no profit from the single supplement.

A confirmation e-mail is sent as soon as possible (it will take longer if you book over the weekend and/or have selected to receive documentation by post).

Your final balance is due eight weeks before the tour departs. A reminder is sent a few weeks in advance of this, along with an itinerary for the first day of the tour.

Final Documents are sent two to three weeks before the tour departs – the full itinerary, a participant list and any background notes. These will be posted to you (unless you have informed us otherwise); if you live outside the UK, they will be given to you on the first day of the tour.