Our Italian holiday consisted of three main cities as a home base. During our time in Venice we personally found it easy to access the desired sights without hiring a tour company. We went early and waited less than fifteen minutes for both St. Mark’s Basilica Cathedral, and Doge’s Palace. The Campanile bell tower elevator line took less than twenty minutes, and was worth the wait. But remember – Go early!

Before leaving for our Italian holiday we booked three tours for our time in Florence, and two tours for our time in Rome. Be very careful and do your research before booking any tours. I noticed that the same few companies popped up when I first began searching online. I later discovered that these companies are merely tour brokers, and receive many complaints.

We were referred to The Roman Guy and had an incredible experience with this company. For Florence we booked early morning, skip the line tours to the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia, and the Duomo. Our reservations for the Duomo also included a ticket to climb the Campanile, but when we exited the Duomo the line for the Campanile was extremely long. We decided to return later in the day, and fortunately had no wait. The view from the top was amazing!

One of our early morning, skip the line tours for Rome was for the Vatican City, which also included St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel. Our second tour included the Colosseum with access to the Forum and Palatine Hill. We considered every tour to be well worth the price. Ciao, ciao!

#Italy, #Italianholiday, #Italianvacation