Southern Italy Tour

ph,

The tour hotels on Rick's tours can sometimes change from one tour to the next due to availability or other factors. Therefore the hotels on your tour may differ from those that were used on my South Italy tour. We used Hotel Sassi in Matera and Hotel Seggio in Vieste.

Ken, do you have any tips or sage words of advice for those of us taking the tour this year? Tour reviews no longer give the kind of details that help us prepare.

We went on this tour this past May. We stayed at the same hotels that Ken listed. It was a great tour, but then all 3 RS tours we've been on, while different, have all been wonderful. Caterina Moore was a fantastic tour guide and a perfect match for me since she is a former restaurant owner and a caterer in the off-season and taught us a great deal about cooking and eating Italian food. We spent the weekend before the tour at a lovely B&B in Orvieto which I'd highly recommend - an easy train ride from FCO and then back to Rome. If I were to do it over again I think I would do what one couple on our tour did and end the trip with a weekend in Ischia which is an island off of Naples.

Thank you Ken for your quick and helpful reply. We will be driving north from Positano to Verona along the coast and appreciate any advice on where to stay.

phjones,

"We will be driving north from Positano to Verona along the coast and appreciate any advice on where to stay."

I'm a bit confused. Are you taking the South Italy tour or travelling on your own? As you'll be driving, I assume you're aware of the need for each driver listed on the rental form to have an International Driver's Permit. You'll also have to be very vigilant to avoid the dreaded ZTL (limited traffic) zones that exist in many Italian towns. Hefty fines for passing through those and also for not being able to produce an IDP if requested.

Patty,

I can't think of any "sage words of advice" at the moment but will add some if I can think of any. It was a great tour!