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Grand Italy & Sicily - 02 Apr 2027 to 01 Oct 2027
Operated by Trafalgar
Tripcode: 4E921M27
Overview
Destination:
Italy,
Vatican City,
Duration:17 days
Type:Group tour (max 45)
Travel Period
April 2027 - October 2027
This 17-day guided tour takes you from the cool hush of Vatican corridors to the salt-touched air of the Ligurian coast. In Rome, you stand beneath Michelangelo’s painted ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, walk through the Vatican Museums and follow your Local Specialist through the Colosseum. Cinque Terre colours the coast in a wash of fishing boats, cliffside houses and sea spray as you pause in a village by the water, then cruise along the rugged Ligurian coastline. In Florence, Neptune watches over the piazza and dinner arrives with local wine, steak and the deep savour of Tuscan cooking. From Sorrento you glide towards Capri by boat with a Local Specialist, before you ascend to Capri town to look out across the wide sweep of Mediterranean blue. In Alberobello, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, whitewashed trulli lead you to a restaurateur where you taste warm freshly made orecchiette pasta.
Highlights:
Standard inclusions
- 8 Dinner (D)
- 16 Breakfast (B)
- Air-conditioned, 40-seat coach with double the standard legroom and onboard washroom
- An expert Travel Director and professional Driver
- Audio headsets for flexible sightseeing
- All hotel tips, charges and local taxes
- We carry your bags for you and promptly deliver them to your hotel door
- From time to time, your Travel Director will delight you with a local specialty representing the destination.
- Complimentary coach and hotel Wi-Fi where available
Itinerary
Expand all 
Collapse all
Collapse allArrive in Rome
You’ll arrive in Rome to streets layered with ancient ruins, medieval buildings, Renaissance palaces and Baroque churches, each one carrying the burnished glow of centuries. After time to unpack, you step back out to restaurant chatter, polished stone and waiters weaving between trattoria tables along the street. This evening, you meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over dinner at a local restaurant, sharing Roman specialities as you pass warm plates and savour the first forkfuls of the trip.
Discover Vatican Treasures and the Colosseum
You'll enter the Vatican Museums with your Local Specialist, where you catch the low murmur of visitors echo through marble halls and rooms filled with papal treasures, painted ceilings. In the Sistine Chapel you'll gaze up at prophets, sibyls, angels, God and men swept across the ceiling by Michelangelo’s brush, from the nine scenes of Genesis to Adam’s finger reaching towards the touch of God. Outside, look up to the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, then cross the Tiber into ancient Rome, passing from the long open ground of the Circus Maximus to the carved stone of the Arch of Constantine. Inside the Colosseum, the arena drops away below you into a maze of exposed passages. Among the stacked arches, weathered brick and pale stone tiers, ancient Rome’s appetite for spectacle lingers. Later, you may choose to continue through the Pantheon, fountains and piazzas, where water splashes against stone and church bells ring above the rooftops. Occasionally, access to the Vatican Museums is limited. If tickets are unavailable, you’ll instead explore the Capitoline Museums, home to iconic Roman art and archaeology.
Rome to Pisa: Riviera Bound
Leaving Rome, you watch cypress trees, vineyards and silvery olive groves slip beyond the window as the countryside stretches into Tuscany. In the Square of Miracles, your Local Specialist will lead you towards the Leaning Tower, where Galileo is said to have tested ideas of velocity and gravity from its famous tilt. You'll stand among the cathedral and baptistery, noticing light shimmer across the mosaics, striped marble facades and the pale sweep of one of Italy’s most extraordinary squares. From here, you'll continue to Santa Margherita Ligure, where pastel buildings, harbour air and the promise of the coast carry you towards the Italian Riviera.
Monterosso to Portofino: Ligurian Coast
With your Local Specialist, you’ll head for Cinque Terre, where the Five Lands line a UNESCO-listed coastline of colourful sea-cut villages. Weather permitting, you arrive at one of its fishing villages by boat, feeling the engine hum through the water as painted houses climb above the shore. In Monterosso, you choose between the medieval quarter and the sandy beach, moving from narrow lanes and old stone walls to the soft sound of waves at the bay. Portofino adds polished boutiques, cafe bars and the piazzetta, where you can linger over a drink while yachts sit in the harbour and voices drift across the water. Your cruise continues along the rugged Ligurian coast to Santa Margherita, with cliffs, coves and bright village facades passing from the deck.
Journey to Baveno and Lake Maggiore
As you travel north to Lake Maggiore, you'll reach Baveno and follow its cobbled streets towards the square. After settling into your hotel, you might look across blue rippling water, green mountains and boats rocking close to shore. This afternoon, you may choose today’s Optional Experience cruise to Isola Bella, crossing towards a palace and Baroque garden arranged in terraces above the lake. On the island, you'll pass grand rooms, fountains, statues and obelisks as the Teatro Massimo rises above the planting. Among the parterres, you trace low box hedges as fountain mist cools the air and perhaps spot a white peacock wandering beneath the citrus trees.
Soave to Venice: Northern Italy
From the comfort of your luxury coach, you can watch the Soave vineyards in neat green rows, then pass Padua as northern Italy leads you towards Venice. By the canals, the road falls away and water takes over, as you pause to hear boats nudging through narrow channels. After the day’s journey, you'll join your travelling companions for dinner, gathering over warm dishes, poured wine and the hum of voices around the table.
Lagoon to Glassworks: Venice in Motion
From a private boat, you’ll cross the lagoon past churches and palaces built between the 13th and 18th centuries, following carved façades, arched windows and weathered marble along the waterline. As you near St Mark’s Square, you continue along the waterfront past the Bridge of Sighs and the Doge’s Palace, where Casanova made his daring escape. Turning into St Mark’s Square, you look up at the Basilica’s domes, arches and gold mosaics, catching light flash across gilded detail and pale marble. Later, you settle into a traditional gondola, listening to the oar dip and music drift along the canal walls. At a Venetian glassblowing workshop, you feel the furnace heat on your skin and watch as master craftsmen turn molten glass into delicate, handmade pieces using centuries-old techniques.
Discover Florence’s Renaissance Squares
Bid farewell to Venice and travel south, stopping in Bologna to enjoy Italy's food capital before continuing to Renaissance Florence. The afternoon is yours. You can follow the smell of espresso from cafe bars, browse leather-shop windows or pause beneath painted shrines set into street corners. Later, you may choose today’s Optional Experience to San Gimignano, where medieval towers stand above narrow lanes and lush vineyards. Back in Florence, you sit down to bistecca alla Fiorentina, take a sip of local wine and cut into a thick, peppery Tuscan steak.
Florence Craft: Leather, Gold and Sculpture
For your choice experience, you can enter the Accademia Gallery and stand before Michelangelo’s David, following the white marble from clenched fist to watchful eyes. Then, as you continue past the cathedral, bell tower and baptistery where you pause to trace each fine carving of Ghiberti’s intricately recreated biblical scenes cut into the gilded bronze panels of the Gates of Paradise. Or join your Travel Director through Florence’s streets to a local cafe, where you pause over a typical Italian treat as the sweet, buttery scent of pastry floats through the air. In Piazza della Signoria, you move from Neptune’s fountain to Hercules and Cacus at the entrance of Palazzo Vecchio, looking up at Neptune’s horses, Hercules’ raised club and the palace’s rough-hewn stone blocks. Discover Florence's artisan heritage with a leatherworking and goldsmithing demonstration. This evening, you may choose an Optional Experience of Tuscan dishes and regional wines, raising a glass of Chianti from the nearby vineyards.
Pompeii and Sorrento: Ancient Streets
Travelling south through the volcanic hills of Frascati, you make your way towards Pompeii, where Mount Vesuvius buried the city in 79 CE. With your Local Specialist, you enter its preserved streets, stepping over cart ruts in the stone, pausing at faded frescoes and looking into doorways that once opened onto Roman homes and shops. From Pompeii, you follow the clifftop road to Sorrento and look out across the Bay of Naples as the vast, deep-blue sea stretches out to the horizon.
Cross the Bay of Naples to Capri
With your Local Specialist, you cross the Bay of Naples towards Capri, watching limestone cliffs line the route across the Mediterranean as salt air brushes your face. At Marina Grande, you step onto the quay to ropes creaking at their moorings and ferry engines humming across the water. You ascend to Capri town, following narrow alleyways worn smooth by centuries of visitors from Emperor Tiberius to Gracie Fields. You descend to the port by funicular railway for the return to Sorrento, watching the hillside slip past in flashes of villas, terraces and blue water. Later, you may choose today’s Optional Experience along the Amalfi Coast, travelling a shoreline of steep roads, sea cliffs and villages set into the cliffsides above the water.
Matera to Alberobello: UNESCO Wonders
After breakfast, you head for Matera and enter the Sassi with your guide, ducking into ancient dwellings and churches dug from limestone. You move through worn stairways, cave thresholds and pale stone passages, close to the spaces where around 20,000 people lived until the 1950s. As you explore one of the Mediterranean’s most extensive troglodyte settlements, you look across roofs, lanes and doorways layered into the ravine. Your guide also points out locations used in The Passion of the Christ. Later, you continue to Alberobello, where you settle in for two nights among whitewashed trulli and conical roofs.
Discover Trulli Craft and Puglian Flavours
In Alberobello, you explore another UNESCO World Heritage Site with your Local Specialist, moving through narrow lanes between whitewashed trulli, their grey limestone cones packed tightly together and tipped with small stone pinnacles. You duck through rounded doorways, look up into domed interiors and study roofs laid in tight circular courses without a smear of mortar. Outside, white symbols mark some of the stones and the lanes squeeze between houses that seem modest at the door and astonishing in the roofline. This evening, you sit down to a freshly prepared Farm-to-Table dinner tasting Puglia through regional ingredients and local recipes.
Gulf of Taranto: Calabria to Taormina
Following the Gulf of Taranto, you’ll travel south into Calabria, watching the road bend past shorelines, mountain slopes and the shimmering Purple Coast. At Italy’s southern edge, you board the ferry for Sicily, feeling the deck hum beneath you as salt wind moves across the Straits of Messina. After disembarking, you continue to Taormina and meet your Local Specialist at the Greek Theatre. You climb through ancient stone tiers, run your hand along weathered stone and pause at the open-air stage, looking from Mount Etna’s dark volcanic slopes to the Ionian Sea beyond the theatre’s broken arches.
Sicily’s Countryside: Taormina to Palermo
On Sicily’s Dawn Coast, you may spend the morning by the Ionian Sea, gazing out across the bright blue water listening to the waves lapping against the shore. Or choose today’s Optional Experience to Mount Etna, Europe’s highest active volcano, where you look across old lava flows, crater slopes and black volcanic rock, tasting mineral grit in the mountain air. Later, you travel through Sicily’s countryside towards Palermo, watching hills, fields and towns pass the window before you enter the capital among balconies, church domes, carved façades and the hum of city streets.
Explore Palermo Cathedral and Palatine Chapel
With your Local Specialist, you enter Palermo Cathedral through the Gothic-Catalan portico, passing beneath ogival arches and finely incised stonework before looking up to the white nave and Baroque dome shaped by Ferdinando Fuga’s 18th-century remodelling. At the Palace of the Normans, you step inside the Palatine Chapel and gaze up at gold mosaics, Byzantine figures and patterned surfaces that glimmer above marble floors. The afternoon is yours, or you may choose today’s Optional Experience to Teatro Massimo, Italy’s largest opera house, before continuing to a historic street market where you listen to vendors’ abbanniate calls ring over crates, stalls and daily trade. This evening, join your Travel Director and travelling companions at a local restaurant for regional Sicilian cuisine and local wine.
Palermo Farewell: Airport Transfer and Goodbyes
After one last goodbye in Palermo, your grand tour of Italy ends with a departure transfer to Palermo Falcone–Borsellino Airport.
Dates
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Operator
Trafalgar
The best of the world unlocked for you. Imagine unmissable experiences you’ve always dreamed of, getting to know the locals and having everything taken care of every step of the way. Here's what you'll experience: Must-sees to local secrets: Visiting bucket list sites are a highlight of travelling, however, travelling on your own can make them hard work. Don’t queue with other sightseers for hours, with Trafalgar our experts unlock doors – think exclusive access to the Vatican out of hours or a tour of Versailles and its grounds with an expert. This, coupled with the intimate glimpses and hidden gems our local specialists show you, are the life-changing experiences that make you feel like an insider, not a tourist. One-of-a-kind experiences: Thanks to our global network you’ll unlock local access to communities and people around the world. Our 100+ Be My Guest experiences are a signature Trafalgar exclusive, where you will enjoy the hospitality of locals as you are welcomed into their homes to hear their stories and learn about their cultures. In every destination, you’ll also enjoy unique “Stays with stories” accommodation: more than just a place to rest your head, they are part of the heritage and fabric of the communities you visit. Responsible travel at heart: When you choose Trafalgar, you are choosing to make your travels a force for good and support our goal to MAKE TRAVEL MATTER®. We recognise our responsibility to ensure we make a positive impact on the planet we call home, the people we visit, and the rich wildlife we find. We ensure that the impacts of our business and your travels are positive in two ways: through our TreadRight Foundation, and our 5-year sustainability strategy How We Tread Right.
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