Escorted Tours to Italy, Region by Region
Italy is not one holiday but a dozen, and the distance between Piedmont and Puglia is far greater than the map suggests. Our Italian tours are built one region at a time: a week in Tuscany, a week in the heel of the boot, a week among the lakes and mountains, with an English-speaking guide and a settled itinerary so nobody spends the evening working out tomorrow.
Most of these holidays fly from a UK airport, stay in one or two 4* hotels and include breakfast and evening meals. The tours below show where each one goes and how long it lasts.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Italy Tours
More than you might expect, and often on uneven ground. Italian hill towns such as Assisi, Ostuni and San Gimignano are built on slopes with cobbles and steps, and archaeological sites like Pompeii and Nora have no smooth paths. Guided walking tours typically last a couple of hours with stops. The coach gets you close, but the last stretch is usually on foot. Ask us about a specific itinerary if walking distance matters to you.
Most of our Italian holidays fly, because the driving distance from the UK to Tuscany or Puglia would eat several days of a week's tour. Once in Italy you travel by coach with a driver, and by ferry where the itinerary includes islands. A few tours also involve rail, including the Bernina Express run from Tirano up to St Moritz. Each tour page lists its travel type.
Yes. Open Group departures are designed for individual travellers joining a scheduled tour, and single travellers are a normal part of most groups. Rooms are priced per person sharing a twin or double, so a single supplement applies where you have a room to yourself; some tours list the exact figure and others quote on request. Tell us which departure interests you and we will confirm the supplement.
Usually one or two. Several of our Italy tours are based in a single 4* hotel for the whole stay, with day excursions out and back, which means unpacking once. Tours that cover more ground split the nights, and the inclusions on each page say exactly how the nights are divided. Where we stay put, the coach does the travelling instead of you.
Yes. Any of these itineraries can run as a Private Group for a gardening club, U3A branch, church group or a set of friends travelling together. Dates, pace and the balance of excursions can be adjusted, and prices are quoted on the basis of your group size. Get in touch with rough numbers and the time of year you have in mind and we will put a costing together.
In the south, yes. July and August in Puglia, Sicily and around Naples regularly sit in the mid-thirties, and midday sightseeing is hard work. The lakes, the Dolomites and Piedmont stay more comfortable, and the coast has a sea breeze. If heat is a concern, look at May, early June, September or October, when the light is kinder and the sites are less crowded.
Choosing Which Part of Italy to Travel
The classic first choice is Tuscany, and it still rewards a week: Florence and the Uffizi, the towers of San Gimignano, Siena, Volterra, and enough vineyard between them to justify a slow coach. Rome works better as a short break, four or five days built around the Forum, the Pantheon and the Vatican Museums.
Further south, Campania puts Pompeii, Naples and the Amalfi Coast within reach of one hotel, with Ischia and Capri reached by ferry. Puglia is quieter and flatter, all olive groves, whitewashed hill towns and the cone-roofed trulli at Alberobello.
In the north, Lake Garda, Lake Maggiore and Lake Como suit anyone who wants water, gardens and boat trips rather than city pavements. Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont are food regions first. The Dolomites and Umbria are for landscape and hill towns.
What Is Included on Our Italy Tours
Our Italian holidays are almost all air-based, and the price shown normally covers return flights, transfers at both ends, hotel accommodation, breakfast and evening meals, the excursions listed in the itinerary and the services of English-speaking guides and tour escorts.
Beyond that, the detail varies by tour and it is worth reading the inclusions on each page:
- Entrance fees are included where an itinerary names a specific site, such as the Uffizi in Florence or Monreale Cathedral in Sicily
- Some tours include wine and water with dinner; others list drinks as extra
- Food-and-wine tours add tastings, light lunches and farm or cellar visits
- Headsets are provided on several of the city tours, which makes a real difference in a crowded museum
- Prices are per person sharing a twin or double room, with a single supplement where one applies
If you want a like-for-like comparison between two tours, ask us and we will set them side by side.
Eating and Drinking Your Way Through Italy
Italian cooking is regional to the point of stubbornness, which is why several of our tours are built around a single area's kitchen. In Emilia-Romagna that means Parma ham hung in the curing rooms above the town, Parmigiano Reggiano, and balsamic vinegar aged in barrels in the lofts of Modena, where the good stuff is measured in decades rather than years.
Piedmont is the other great table. Barolo and Barbaresco come from a handful of villages in the Langhe hills, and autumn brings the white truffle, hunted with dogs in the woods after dawn.
In Tuscany the food is plainer and better for it: bread, beans, olive oil, game. Around Sorrento the lemons become limoncello, and in Naples the pizza is thin, wet in the middle and eaten folded. Tastings on our tours are guided, so you learn what you are drinking.
Roman Ruins, Renaissance Art and Opera
Italy holds more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country, and our itineraries tend to concentrate on a few properly rather than ticking off many. Pompeii still has its ruts in the roads and its bread ovens. The Sassi di Matera, just over the Puglian border, were cave dwellings occupied until the 1950s and are now among the most extraordinary townscapes in Europe.
For art, Florence is the obvious centre, but Assisi's basilica frescoes and the mosaics of Sicily repay the journey just as well. Sardinia goes back further again, to the Bronze Age towers of Su Nuraxi and the Punic and Roman port at Nora.
Verona's Roman amphitheatre has staged opera every summer since 1913, and the acoustics are famously good. Our Arena tours include reserved seats, walking tours of Verona and Mantua, and lunch on performance days.
