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Venice cityscape with Grand Canal waterway © Aliaksandr Antanovich

Pompeii © Cole Ciarlello via unsplash

Aerial view of St. Peter's Basilica and St. Peter's Square © Aleksandr Medvedkov

Mosaic on the floor of San Marco basilica in Venice © Romeo Ninov

Venice, Rialto Bridge, aquatint c. 1830.

Great Cities of Italy - Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples – with Pompeii

Overview Practicalities

Section:

Tour highlights

A sweeping introduction – or reintroduction – to Italy, through four of its most significant cities.
Vast spectrum of history and art, from Roman antiquity to the Baroque and Renaissance.
Several private visits by special arrangement, including to the Basilica of San Marco, and the Sistine Chapel.
Two eminent art historians dovetail as lecturer, and an experienced tour manager accompanies throughout.

For centuries Italy has proved an irresistible draw to travellers; from its place at the apex of the Grand Tour, to the romantic poets and artists who felt the pull of its landscapes and cities, to the immortalisation on film in the 20th century of the land of la Dolce Vita. All have helped cement Italy in the global cultural imagination like no other country. Indisputably, it has everything: history, art and archaeology; food and wine; cities, countryside, mountains and sea. It was the centre of the Roman Empire and the cradle of the Renaissance.

But where to start? While it would be foolish to try and ‘do’ the whole of Italy, its most important cities do offer an excellent introduction. The four we visit are major cultural touchstones, yet strikingly different from each other, and all home to sites of incomparable historical importance – Italy currently holds the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage sites in the world.

Venice, La Serenissima, is largely unchanged from when it was the seat of a vast and powerful Mediterranean empire, fiercely independent from the rule of the Vatican, and a magnet for artists, musicians and thinkers. The sheer quantity of art in Florence is unrivalled; here the foundations of the next 500 years of western art were laid. The works of the great Renaissance rivals, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, feature heavily, but there is a wealth of others too. Rome has been known as the Eternal City since the poet Tibullus in the 1st Century BC, and so it remains; here we span millenia and cover vast swathes of the city, seeing the major monuments, buildings, and works of art, from the Colosseum to Caravaggio. Finally Naples, synonymous with cacophony and noise, is brimming with life, and, from a storied and frequently difficult history, is pushing heartily upwards.

This tour takes place at a (comparatively) quieter time of year. In each of the cities, we see the essentials but also visit many lesser known treasures where visitors are far fewer. We include private arrangements to places not normally open to the public, or, for some of the busiest sites, outside of usual opening hours. We have longstanding relationships with hotels and restaurants who prioritise the local area and its economy.

This tour is particularly strenuous. Please read the advice under 'Practicalities'.

Practicalities

Two sharing: A$16,150 or A$15,670 without flights. Single occupancy: A$19,300 or A$18,820 without flights.

Travel by rail (business class); travel by private coach or minibus; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts (including one in the Vatican); 3 lunches (including two light lunches on trains), and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers, tour manager, and local guides; a donation to the Venice in Peril Fund.

The Venice in Peril Fund is a British charity dedicated to preserving the art and architecture of the city. Your donation (included in the price of the tour) will go towards supporting various projects in the city.

Hotel Palazzo Sant’Angelo, Venice: 4-star boutique hotel in an excellent location on the Grand Canal near Campo Sant’Angelo and the Rialto Bridge. Rooms with a canal view may be available on request and for a supplement. Hotel Balestri, Florence: a delightful 4-star hotel on the bank of the River Arno. Donna Camilla Savelli, Rome: a pleasingly restored former baroque monastery, now 4-star hotel, set at the foot of the Janiculum hill in Trastevere. Grand Hotel Santa Lucia, Naples: a 4-star hotel on the waterfront about 15 minutes on foot from Piazza Plebiscito, with spectacular views of Mount Vesuvius and the island of Capri. Rooms with a sea view are available on request and for a supplement. Single occupancy rooms are doubles for sole use.

This is a particularly strenuous tour. All four cities involve a lot of walking and coach access is non-existent or restricted in the centres; in Venice you must be able to confidently step on and off boats. There is also a lot of standing in museums, churches, and sites and uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. You need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the trains and wheel it within stations. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour would prove difficult.

Are you fit enough to join the tour?

Between 8 and 19 participants.

Before booking, please refer to Smartraveller to ensure you are happy with the travel advice for the destination(s) you are visiting. As a British company we follow the advice of the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

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