Coach holidays to Italy at an unhurried pace
Italy rewards being driven. The hill towns of Umbria sit at the top of steep, narrow roads, while the old Via Emilia runs almost dead straight across the plain past Parma, Modena and Bologna. With someone else at the wheel you can look out of the window rather than hunt for a parking space or work out which city centres are closed to traffic.
The holidays below use a coach for the touring, with a fixed itinerary of excursions and one or two hotels as a base. We travel to Italy for the smaller places as much as the famous ones – Castell'Arquato, Dozza, Gubbio, Deruta – each an easy morning's drive away.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Coach Holidays to Italy Tours
No – the Italian holidays on this page fly out from the UK, with airport transfers included at both ends, and then use a coach in Italy for the excursions and any move between hotels. That keeps a two-day drive each way out of a week's holiday and gets you to Umbria or Emilia on the first afternoon. If you would prefer to travel overland, or you are a group enquiring about a coach from your own area, ask us.
More than on a flat city break. Assisi, Gubbio, Spoleto and Perugia are all hill towns with cobbles, slopes and steps, and coaches cannot enter the historic centres, so there is usually a walk in from a gate or car park. Most excursions involve being on your feet for a couple of hours with stops. The amount varies by tour and by day, so tell us what you can manage comfortably and we will talk you through the specific itinerary.
Each tour page lists its own inclusions, but broadly: return flights and airport transfers in the UK and in Italy, four-star hotel accommodation, breakfast and an evening meal at the hotels each day, all the suggested excursions and the transport needed for the itinerary. Lunches and drinks are not normally listed. Prices are per person sharing a twin or double room; the Emilia-Romagna tour, for example, shows a single supplement of £220. Ask us if anything on a particular departure is unclear.
Yes. Alongside our scheduled Open Group departures, any of these Italian holidays can be run as a Private Group for a club, church, U3A branch or a set of friends travelling together. Costing depends on numbers – the Emilia-Romagna itinerary, for instance, is priced on a party of 25 – and dates and excursions can often be adjusted to suit the group. Send us your rough numbers and preferred time of year and we will quote.
What coach touring in Italy is really like
Distances between the places worth seeing are short. Parma to Bologna is around an hour on the autostrada; most of the day's driving on an Italian tour is done before the morning coffee stop and again in the late afternoon.
The one thing to understand is the zona a traffico limitato. Almost every Italian historic centre bars traffic within the old walls, so a coach sets you down at a city gate or a car park below the town and you walk in from there. In the hill towns that walk is usually uphill, on cobbles and worn paving, sometimes with steps or a series of ramps. It is not difficult for anyone who walks regularly, but it is not flat either, and there is often no way of driving closer.
Coach touring also solves the problem of the countryside between the towns, which in Umbria and Emilia is much of the pleasure.
Umbria's hill towns and the Emilian plain
Umbria is the only mainland Italian region with no coastline, which is part of why it stayed quiet. Assisi is built along the flank of Monte Subasio in pale pink Subasio stone, and the Basilica of St Francis holds the Giotto and Simone Martini frescoes that draw visitors from all over the world; Rivotorto, just below the town, marks where Francis and his first companions lived. Spoleto has its great fortress and the Ponte delle Torri; Gubbio is steeper and greyer, with the Palazzo dei Consoli standing above the rooftops; Perugia's Corso Vannucci is one of the best evening streets in Italy. At Deruta, majolica has been painted since the Middle Ages.
North of the Apennines the mood changes entirely. Emilia-Romagna is flat, prosperous and serious about food: Parmigiano Reggiano and prosciutto around Parma, traditional balsamic aged in barrels at Modena, porticoed streets in Bologna. Add Rimini on the Adriatic, the medieval piazza at Castell'Arquato, the painted house walls at Dozza and the republic of San Marino on its rock.
Choosing when to travel
Spring and autumn suit this kind of touring best. April, May and early June bring wildflowers on the Umbrian hills and comfortable temperatures for walking up into a hill town. September and October are the food months on the plain, when the grape harvest is in and the first truffles appear.
High summer is hot, and the Po valley in particular can be humid and hazy for days at a time. Many Italians take their own holidays in August, so some family-run shops and restaurants close.
Two dates worth knowing if Assisi is on your itinerary: Easter week and the feast of St Francis on 4 October both fill the town. It is a fine thing to witness, but busy. If a particular time of year matters to you, ask us which departures fall when.
