We are planning a 10 day trip to Florence, Venice and Tuscany areas in April 2011. We are married couple from Washington State, 60 yrs old, travel frequently ,but no in depth Italian,. Do not need air fare inculuded, but will consider if advantageous. We are flexible in our dates and generally looking at low-to-mid price range for an escorted/coach tour. Any sugggstions of who to contact for a reasonably priced 7-8 day tour? Other tips or suggestions?

My only tip is to NOT take a tour. You CAN do it on your own and will probably enjoy it much more! And you have plenty of time to find some good bargains!

Read some of the Italy trip reports here to get a good idea of where you'd like to go and transportation recommendations and costs, as well as lodging choices.

Buon viaggio! You will absolutely love Italy!

For Venice contact Nan at this website.
http://livingveniceblog.com/
She can help with tours of this city, her help will come at some cost though.

No one knows what you mean by "reasonably priced."

In general, the majority of regular posters on this Europe message board are very anti-coach tour for newcomers. Some message boards that might be more helpful to your research are TripAdvisor, Frommer's and Rick Steves (although since Rick Steves runs his own tour company, expect to hear nothing but praise for his tours there!)

Most of the millions of Americans traveling to Rome, Florence and Venice do not speak any Italian. There are many guidebooks that will take you through process of booking your own tour step by step. (I think reading internet trip reports is far less reliable, but it can give you some idea about what others enjoy and if you would like what they like or something different.)

It's going to be tough finding an 8 day escorted tour of Venice and Tuscany. I looked at Globus, Cosmos, Insight, Trafalgaar, Go Ahead, and Go Today and none of them have what you want. Good luck! Escorted tours used to be a good value but today I find them over-priced for what they offer.

Your best bet is to schedule local tours of Venice and the areas of Tuscany you want to see and put together your own trip.

If you really want an escorted tour then you will have to add time and locations to your trip but I would advise against escorted tours, especially the low end ones as the tour guides, food, and lodging locations will be less than ideal. You can do this trip much more reasonably on your own and see what you want to see.

I am one of those who strongly recommends that you not take an escorted tour. You say you travel frequently so you should consider an independent trip to Venice, Florence and Tuscany, perhaps with tour guides for the cities. We have been to Italy 3 times in the past 9 years. All of our trips to Italy and elsewhere have been planned and carried out independently. We occasionally have a tour guide (e.g. last month in Pompeii)for a specific sight. I speak a bit of Italian but we have never found it necessary to our travels. The public transportation in Venice and from Venice to Florence is excellent. Florence is very easy to navigate on your own as the historic center is small and walkable. It is less easy to visit Tuscany without a car so you might want to book a tour of that area. There is a lot of information in this forum about independent travel but, as noted above, you are unlikely to get much help on escorted tours.

I know this advice is not what you came here for so I wish you luck in finding what you are looking for elsewhere but hope you consider other options such as independent travel

I always disagree with my esteemed colleagues on this but I believe it's better to travel with a tour on your first go round especially if you want to visit three cities in less than two weeks. Gate 1 Travel has a number of tours to Italy which would fit into your travel plans. Without airfare, the costs I found start at a little over $1,000.

With a tour on your initial visit, you don't have to worry about the hotel accommodations (you are offered several choices and can upgrade if the basic hotels aren't up to your standards), local transportation, mapping out where you are going and getting entrance tickets anywhere. This is all done for you including jumping to the front of entrance lines. Your English speaking guide(s) will be with you through the journey and will explain the history of each place you'll visit. This is a much more efficient way to travel when you don't know an area and IMHO it's more fun when you don't have to worry about anything. There is also plenty of free time to wander. You will get a feeling for the places you'd like to return to and then you'll have enough knowledge and familiarity with these places so that you can plan your future trips on your own.

I know this post will bring out the wrath of my fellow Fodorites but I'm willing to speak out in favor of the loathed tour (for first timer visits)!

<< Gate 1 Travel has a number of tours to Italy which would fit into your travel plans >>

Gate 1 does not have ANY tours that cover only Venice and Tuscany. The closest tour is 8 days in Montecatini (about an hour outside Florence) which does not include Venice.

We are planning on going to Italy for the 1st time in Oct. 2011. We are 99% sure we are going to book our tour with www.italywithfriends.com/about.html
Suzan takes small groups. Check out her website. She has openings for May/June 2011.
Her website contains pictures and be sure to check her blog. She is in Italy this month.
Have fun!

Adrienne is correct - Gate 1's tours are generally on Venice, Florence and Rome. I enjoyed the tour of these three cities with Gate 1 but have returned many times to Florence on my own. I found Tuscany very easy to navigate without a tour. You really just need a car and a map.

We did Italy on our own. It is so easy as you can travel by train, get private guides as you need them, rent a car in tuscany.....I don't believe you need a tour guide and we speak no italian. If you are interested in my itinerary, email me at [email protected].

Loved Italy and everyone who lived there.....amazing country

Marilee............Is is wise to add your email to a forum? You will get a lot of Spam now.