“Hello Daniela,
Sorry this has taken a while to get to you. We have our daughter’s wedding in October and have been busy with all the planning. Her fiancé’s parent contacted you and were requesting some of the same things we did because we enjoyed it so much. Thanks again.
So, I’ll just go through our schedule and comment.
Venice: Enjoyed our hotel and it was in a great location. The boat tour on the canal was good, but our guide a bit hard to understand. She was not feeling well the days we were there and that may be the reason. We enjoyed the rest of the time exploring the town on our own. Dinner at Restaurant Il Ridotto was amazing. Much nicer that anything we expected. We were always surprised at how much food was offered at each restaurant.
Bologna: We really enjoyed this tour. Loved the tour guide and the food was fun (more than we expected, again). We’re very glad this was included in our trip
Florence: We LOVED the Palazza Alfani. It was fun to be all together as a family and in a great location and historic building. Our tour guide here was also good. Some things were closed because it was Sunday, but we felt as though we saw much of the city. We loved the dinner at Trattoria ai 4 Leoni and still talk about the pear pasta we had there.
Cinque Terre: our driver was very good and informative. Our day was a bit mixed up here. The kids left their swim suits in the car and then wished they had brought them. It’s a bit difficult to swim unless you bring towels, etc. We all loved seeing the country side, but if we were to do it again we would like to go to maybe the last beautiful hill top city and swim in a more private location. (There was a beautiful lagoon below us with fewer swimmers.) The other towns were quite crowded which may have been the time of year, but it wasn’t my favorite stop.
Tuscany: the cheese farm was interesting. We enjoyed the lunch, but maybe could have given less time to the tour. I’m not sure I was keep it on our list. We did have a greater appreciation for the great cheese we ate after this, however. The rental car and driving was very smooth and we liked having a car. We drove into Sienna that night as well as another town (vampire related?). Can’t remember the name at this minute. We all loved the Borgo San Luigi.
Siena: We LOVED this! So much fun to be in the town for the Palio Eve night, with all the singing and excitement. Dinner was fun and our roof top view of the race was amazing. We are all so glad we were in Italy for this. And of course having our contrada’s horse win made it even better Tour guide here was good.
Rome: Loved the hotel. Beautiful and great service. The kids loved the Vespa tour. We all enjoyed it. My driver spoke great English so I got more of a tour as we drove than some of the others. Dinner at Cantina e Cucina was great. There was some mix up with their but he served us anything we wanted to order and was very nice. We loved the walking tour and Vatican tour. Nicki was probably our favorite guide of the trip (Paola was a favorite too).
We didn’t want our wonderful trip to end. Thank you for your suggestions and planning.
Best, Leslie.”
Leslie Thomas (Las Vegas, NV) – AUGUST 2013
