Florence, Rome, Amalfi

I have friends who use a different guide in each city, who picks them up,takes them to various sites, and then they are on their own. My friends choose their hotels, schedules, etc. (and get great restaurant advice from the guides). I prefer to do it myself, but I'm offering this idea as an alternative to having one company do three different areas. RS guidebooks give recommendations for good local guides, and I'm sure you'll get specific suggestions to your post.

Planning and doing it on your own is half the fun. Using public transport or even driving yourself will make you feel like a local, instead of having a tour or limo company take you around with a chauffeur. It's the same difference as diving in the coral reefs in the caribbean or looking at it in an aquarium.

Julie most of us on this website are do it ourselvers, with help from forums like this and others, guide books and the web. I am going to suggest you don't really want a tour company, but a good travel agent , since you want to totally customize your whole trip( deciding where you stay and for how long, no tour allows you to do that )
A good travel agent can make all the arrangements you want by working with you. Personally I think doing the arrangements myself is alot more fun but to each his own. PS Please do be careful which ta you use, a good one can be a great help, a bad one will just book you with stuff that pays her a good commission and not nessesarily be a good fit or deal for you.

Thx for all your help...I found a company who we can arrange the tours we want once we get to the city of choice so we're not constricted by a group tour, which is really what I wanted in the first place. We can arrange transportation to and from cities by train.

Just finished a Rick Steves tour in France and had a blast. Have you looked into his tours of Italy?