🇮🇹 RS - Best of Venice, Florence & Rome in 10 Days Tour - ADVICE/TIPS 🇮🇹
I am taking my awesome 26 yo son on a first ever EU trip. Wondering if any of you travelers who have experienced this tour can add any tips on any level? Local hidden gems, favorite must haves/dos? Did you book the Sistine Chapel, St Peters, Vatican?
We are traveling from LA
THANK YOU. We're excited.
You will have a great time. Check out the VFR scrapbooks here on the Forum, and also the Trip Reports. Enjoy!
Arrivé à couple days early, and stay a couple days after, if you can. It’s been many years since I took this tour so St. Peter’s and the Vatican etc. were included, but I felt I wanted a lot more time as the place was quite crowded. If I were to go again, I would want to book a very early, or very late time in an attempt to avoid some of the crowds. I also went out to Ostia Antica on my own, after the tour, and went for a long walk down the Appian Way, and popped into some sights there. In Venice, the tour goes to Burano, but not Murano, so I did that pre tour, plus spent some time riding the vaporetto down the grand canal as the tour doesn’t do that either. There was time during the tour to visit the Doge’s Palace so some of us went in later in the day when there was no line up to get in. In Florence the time options are limited, but some of us managed to climb the Duomo.
We took this tour in October 2023. Definitely stay a day or two pre/post-tour if you can. We added a day in Venice and 2 in Rome. In Florence, we skipped the cooking class so we could explore the Duomo Complex with our Giotto Passes.
In Rome, we went to Ostia Antica post-tour; it was a revelation! We also visited the Borghese Gallery, which was the highlight of Rome for me. We were lucky on our tour because it still went to the Vatican Museums and the interior of the Colosseum.
I took the VFR tour with two other family members in 2023. At the time, the Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel were included, so I can't speak to booking that separately. We did go to St. Mark's and the Doge's Palace on our own the morning before the first tour group meeting. We were there in March of that year, so we didn't buy our tickets until that day.
I took the Alilaguna from the airport to Venice--I found the directions provided in the pre-tour packet on how to get to the first hotel easy to follow.
Advice? Do a lot of walking/stair climbing at home to prep for the trip. When there, give yourself time to sit and have a spritz or a cup of coffee in one of the little campos away from the crowd every now and then, and soak it all in. The wine tasting lunch near Orvieto, Umbria, was one of my favorite activities on the tour, and in the cities, I loved the backstreets walking tours, especially in Florence because the centre was quite crowded, more so than Venice and Rome, I thought. We also had a fun cooking class while in Florence.
We spent a night and day in Assisi post tour, and that was also a great memory.
Great tour! Hope you really enjoy!
We did this tour a few yrs ago and have been back to Italy a few times on our own. It's our fav European Country. Def add days to Venice - it is magnificent. We stayed at a B&B for 3 nights pretour and hired a private guide for the Jewish Ghetto and St. Marks - St. Marks is magnificent and if the RS Tour doesn't take you inside - def do it on your own.
Florence is amazing and needs so many more days than you get on this tour. If you ever go back, take some day trips with WalkAboutFlorence - we loved their BEST OF TUSCANY tour and their CHIANTI WINE & FOOD SAFARI tour. While the Duomo is magnificent to look at from the outside, the inside is nothing special. Santa Croce is magnificent on the inside, one of the prettiest cathedrals we've ever seen. If you have free time, try to get inside. The LeatherSchool is behind this cathedral and is a great place to buy excellent leather items (and authentic as there are LOTS of fakes in Florence).
Rome always needs more time, so extend there if you can. The most underrated thing we've seen in Rome is San Clemente - it was a surprise visit for us with RS and a highlight of the whole trip. If you don't go with RS, find a guide and go. It's still our fav. It is built on many levels of history dating back to the 1st century. It is spectacular. Of course, the Vatican, Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon.
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR TIPS!
Definitely find a way to see the Borghese. It was the most amazing sculpture/ art, and I am not that particularly into art. When we took the VFR tour they still took us to the Vatican Museum/ Sistine Chapel. Very, very,very crowded so if you go please try and book a very,very early time. It’s one of those things that we’re glad we saw it but wouldn’t go again. St Peter’s we saw on our own, again amazing and it and the Borghese I’d see again.
