Mediterranean Suggestions? February/March

Hi Sheila,
only you know if you are happy to continue arranging your own trips.
I think you have to look at how you both feel more than your birth-date.
Ten-day bases sound sensible, moving accommodation is always a bit stressful and tiring.
Apart from that, if you organize your own trip you'll be doing exactly what you want when you want to do it and at your own pace. If one day you don't feel up to doing what's planned you're free to relax. An organized tour might even turn out more tiring.
Some friends of mine started going on large tours for seniors when they were still in their 60s because they felt safer with a doctor. Another couple of friends, two cousins, two ladies in their 80s (80and 82) drove down from Italy to Greece where one has a second home last May taking a longer route than usual about 2000km because they wanted to see something new......

You will need a car on Corsica and Sardinia, plus maybe Sicily. Are you comfortable driving in Italy? Have you looked into rental cars for over-80 drivers in Italy? Sometimes there are restrictions or extra charges.

My husband and I are close to your age and happily travel around Italy independently, using trains and doing lots of walking and hiking. But we choose not to drive in Italy any more, so when we decided to visit Puglia last February we booked a Road Scholar small-group tour there. This was our first “standard” group tour, although we have done serious guided hiking tours with adventure travel companies like MT Sobek. Those “tours” have 7-12 people and are very active. The Road Scholar group was 24 people and was of course much less active (no strenuous hiking) but we were very pleased with it. Our guide Emmanuela was a gem—-so good at explaining the culture and history, and just generally fun to bbe around. So were the other guests. The lodging and food were excellent quality, apart from the one dinner we had at our cooking class. That was forgettable.

So if you are thinking of trying a tour, you could start by looking at what Road Scholar has to offer for your chosen destinations. I also suggest you consider Puglia—-stunningly beautiful, lots of history, and low crowd numbers in February.

Here are some of the Road Scholar offerings:

https://www.roadscholar.org/collections/mediterranean-italy/

We did the “Puglia’s Hidden Gems” winter trip; they also offer a similar winter trip in Sicily. And the “Cooking in Sicily” trip in March has a few openings left. The Sardinia trip is not offered in winter,nor is one to Corsica.

Another tour company to consider is Peter Sommers Travel:

https://www.petersommer.com/sicily/tours

https://www.petersommer.com/greece/tours

I have read good things about this company, as they specialize in Greece and italy (and also Turkey). Many of their offerings are cruises on small ships.

Have you considered Croatia/puglia combo?
You have pretty good conections to Puglia region from Croatia...