I spent five days touring Italy and the sights were breathtaking

If you’re a pressed-for-time sightseer, a tour is an easy and comfortable introduction to Italy. 

A couple of hours before I join Trafalgar Tours’ seven-day Italian Holiday, I meet an older American woman on the edge of tears. She tells me that she can’t believe she is in Rome, that the city is so marvellous and beautiful, and that she is so utterly thankful for the chance to be here.

I promise myself to try to maintain a sense of wonder like hers, and to make the most of my chance to travel by coach from Rome to Venice, Verona, Pisa and Florence, then back to Rome in a single week.

Our tour group of 43 gathers at Il Cantico hotel near Vatican City, where I have a view from my balcony of the dome of St Peter. Most of the other guests are retired Americans and Canadians. And any younger people on the trip tend to be travelling with their elderly parents.

We have eight wedding anniversaries, including one 55th, and nine birthdays; one man is turning 89 years old. I am the only Australian, although Australia is apparently Trafalgar’s second-largest market.

After an evening tour of Rome we enjoy a “light dinner” of antipasto, pizza, pasta and panna cotta, which is heavier than any meal I’ve eaten in Australia all year. The breakfast buffet is equally generous. Truly, it is a sign of a great civilisation to eat cherry pie for breakfast.

The last time I went to the Vatican, my partner and I had to queue for about two hours to get in. With Trafalgar, it takes about 15 minutes from arrival to entrance.

On our only full day in Rome, we visit the Vatican and the Colosseum. This is the point when I realise the value of travelling with a tour group. The last time I went to the Vatican, my partner and I had to queue for about two hours to get in, with one of us acting as a placeholder while the other went off in search of drinks. With Trafalgar, it takes about 15 minutes from arrival to entrance.

It isn’t difficult to surrender to feelings of awe and gratitude when I’m gazing up at Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. It’s like being wrapped inside one of the world’s greatest works of art.

A coach is not a bad way to see Rome, as buses and taxis are allowed to drive over tram lines. And it’s more comfortable than I expected – particularly when I have a seat towards the middle of the bus.

It isn’t difficult to surrender to feelings of awe and gratitude when I’m gazing up at Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. 

Dinner is held nearby at Le Terme del Colosseo. When I enter the restaurant, the staff sing an aria and my spine starts to tingle. There are two reasons for this: (a) their voices are strong and beautiful; (b) I feel the terrifying onset of audience participation. Singers continue to perform opera throughout the meal. To accompany an excerpt from The Barber of Seville, the baritone Figaro pretends to take scissors to the heads of various diners. He lifts my cap, finds nothing underneath, and shakes his head.

On the way back through Rome, we (that is, most people but me) sing along to “Que Sera, Sera”, “That’s Amore” and, puzzlingly, “New York, New York”. It proves an astonishing evening and an unexpected pleasure.

The next morning, we drive to Venice. Water taxis are included in the price of the tour, but a gondola ride is optional. However, as tour leader Rebecca says, “When your friends ask you if you went on a gondola when you visited Venice, you’re going to look a little bit stupid if you go, ‘No’.”

Beneath Juliet’s Balcony is a statue of Juliet. Lovers are encouraged to rub her right breast for good luck.

Venice is stunning. In St Mark’s Square, I let out an involuntary “Wow”, which is not the sort of thing I often do. Apart from a pointlessly lengthy shopping stop at a glassblowing showroom, unconvincingly dressed up as socially responsible patronage of a dying art, everything in the city is wonderful.

On the road, Rebecca keeps us entertained with Italian lessons, snatches of history, and stories about her tour-bus driver husband and (most frequently) their problems with this year’s olive harvest.

The next stop is Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet, around which various dubious tourist attractions have sprung up, including a Juliet balcony called Juliet’s Balcony, and Juliet’s Tomb, which is empty. Beneath Juliet’s Balcony is a statue of Juliet. Lovers are encouraged to rub her right breast for good luck, although Juliet was anything but lucky in love. The current statue is a copy. The original was removed to a museum when her right breast started to wear off. I love all this.

After Verona is Pisa, where tourists vie to get the best photograph of themselves apparently holding up the Leaning Tower with an arm or a leg.

After Verona is Pisa, where tourists vie to get the best photograph of themselves apparently holding up the Leaning Tower with an arm or a leg. This makes for a strange spectacle of dozens of people hopping around the south side of the tower, pushing at the air like Marcel Marceau or dabbing like teenagers. But the Leaning Tower and Pisa Cathedral to which it belongs are incredible sights of rare magnificence.

The last stop before we return to Rome is Florence, and I just can’t get used to the beauty of the city, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio and the River Arno. Everywhere I look, I see something lovely. Like the woman I met when I arrived, I’m on the verge of tears.

We are treated to dinner at the 15th-century Villa di Maiano in the hills above the city. Everything at the table was grown on the sprawling lands around the family-owned Renaissance property. The pasta is the best I have ever tasted, and the wine is the finest of the tour.

The last stop before we return to Rome is Florence, and I just can’t get used to the beauty of the city.

Throughout our journey, the food is pretty good, with the exception of lunch at the recommended-but-not-included Il Turista restaurant (the name should’ve been a giveaway) in Pisa. The hotels are all clean and reasonable. The local guides are generally excellent. The ever-bubbly Rebecca looks after everyone. The coach usually has to park some distance from the main attractions, so we do a lot of walking.

We see a great deal of Italy in only seven days, and Trafalgar does most of the hard work: it would have been much more difficult to organise everything independently.

If I were to do it again, I would take a longer tour with more leisurely stops, and I’d probably arrange a brief stopover in the Middle East to give my body a better chance to adjust to the time zone. But if you’re a pressed-for-time sightseer, a tour is an easy and comfortable introduction to Italy. And the sights are just breathtaking.

In Venice, water taxis are included in the price of the tour, but a gondola ride is optional.

When to book Trafalgar Tours’ seven-day Italian Holiday

Trafalgar Tours runs six-night Italian Holiday packages regularly all year, and up to once a week during peak seasons. Six breakfasts, four dinners and many excursions are included. Prices begin at $3125 per person in 2025. Airfares are not included. trafalgar.com

Emirates, Etihad, Qantas and Qatar Airways offer connecting flights from Australia to Italy. You can book these independently or through Trafalgar Tours.

The writer was a guest of Trafalgar Tours.

Originally published as I spent five days touring Italy and the sights were breathtaking