September 2022
Cultural Italy is by far and away one of the most professional and thorough travel coordinating agencies that I have ever worked with. I worked with a wonderful young agent name Monica. She was able to work with me on ALL the details of the trip and tailored it to our needs and desires for the trip. We had originally planned our trip to Italy for fall 2020 but COVID put a halt to that. Cultural Italy allowed us to carry our deposit and itinerary up to December of 2023 if need be, which was quite a relief during that difficult time with COVID. We were finally able to take the trip in September of 2022 and the trip met and, most of the time exceeded our expectations. Our hotels were wonderfully luxurious and close to all of the local sites. We were able to walk to/from just about everywhere. One of our hotels was located directly on the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella in Florence. We had one of the few rooms that had a balcony looking directly out over the piazza. They also booked a private wine tour with lunch and wine tasting at a local vineyard while we were in the Tuscany area. Our driver was very knowledgeable about the area and gave us plenty of private time to walk through the small towns that we visited in Tuscany. Cultural Italy arranged for private drivers during all our transfers; to/from the train stations and to/from the airports. All the drivers were prompt, courteous, and very helpful.
I would recommend the private tours above group tours if possible. More expensive but it gave us a more personal level of attention during the tours and the guides are all very knowledgeable about the area you are touring. The pace, during a private tour, was set for our preference rather than being shuffled along with a larger group. Also if you are in Venice, it might be wiser to find a private gondolier on one of the side streets rather than a larger company The lines are longer there and there are traffic jams in the canals as they are moving tourists around. You can also catch a gondola at the Grand Canal as well. While out and about don’t be afraid to explore on your own that is how we found a lot of interesting stuff in each place we stayed, like the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens in Florence, that we walked to and toured on our own.
I would give Cultural Italy a 5+ star rating for the services they provide to insure you have a great experience and would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone traveling to Italy.
