Benvenuto!!!!!!
Greetings from the Northeast. My name is Evelyn (Evie)!
My Parents and I partook in the Fall 2022 Rick Steves Best of Venice, Florence and Rome Tour.
To be honest, I have wanted to go to Italy (and Europe in general) since I was in High School.
So, the company that I work for instituted a sabbatical program for employees and I decided to finally fulfill a dream to go to Italy.
When I started researching trips and places to go for Italy, my parents decided to join me for this once in a lifetime trip
My mother had heard great things about the Rick Steves Tour experience so we looked into the tour and booked The Fall 2022 in October 2022.
When we signed up for the Rick Steves Tour, it was wonderful that a responsibility of figuring out where to stay in each city or how to get between the various cities was lifted off of our shoulders.It was nice to know that The tour would be shown where to go throughout each of the cities.
When the time for the tour came around, we headed over to the airport in anticipation for the overnight red eye to Rome ( YEAH!!!!). Aside from a slight delay in leaving the East Coast, the flight was smooth. We had chosen to fly in and out Rome since it gave us more choices for airlines, flight times and dates than flying into Venice. But it worked out really well because we were able to take a high speed train from downtown Rome up to Venice. It was nice to be able to just sit back in the train seat and allow the beautiful countryside zip right by. The tickets were really easy to buy via ticketing kiosks.
When we arrived in Venice train station, we transferred to the Vaperatto (water bus, a convent way to get around Venice in your free time) to travel the few stops to our Venice hotel.
To be honest, as the vaperatto was chugging along the Canal, I almost cried a little looking out at the houses and palazzos of Venice for the very first time. That evening we unpacked and got ready for the first full day in Venice the next day and meeting the rest of the tour group.
***Pro Tips***:
-The website, Visit A City is a spectacular site for itineraries or reference place for if you have some free time in any city.
- I had an acquaintance who had worked in the Vatican in the past who told me once that visiting Italy in the Fall months of October and November are actually Ideal because it it towards the end (or after) the peak tourist season and the weather is not as hot as in the summer months.
-When you need to Validate the ticket on the Platform before boarding the Train! but it is supper easy to just have the ticket validated with the yellow boxes on the Platform.
-The Rick Steves Site will list an itinerary for the tour under the pertinent information. It was helpful to compare the planned Group Itinerary against suggestions from sites like Visit a City, etc to plan your free time.
-Check the posted daily Itinerary the Guides post in the hotel. It helps to plan how when to buy tickets to various cultural locations online either in the morning or the day before.
-There is a Rick Steves Podcast App. The app is accessible through the App Store. The Podcasts are Rick and other people talking about various cultural locations. I would would suggest downloading the podcast to a location you are going to (like say the Sistine Chapel) when you are connected to Wi-Fi (like at the hotel) so that you are ready to start listening via your headphones or Airpods when the time comes.
Greetings from the Northeast. My name is Evelyn (Evie)!
My Parents and I partook in the Fall 2022 Rick Steves Best of Venice, Florence and Rome Tour.
To be honest, I have wanted to go to Italy (and Europe in general) since I was in High School.
So, the company that I work for instituted a sabbatical program for employees and I decided to finally fulfill a dream to go to Italy.
When I started researching trips and places to go for Italy, my parents decided to join me for this once in a lifetime trip
My mother had heard great things about the Rick Steves Tour experience so we looked into the tour and booked The Fall 2022 in October 2022.
When we signed up for the Rick Steves Tour, it was wonderful that a responsibility of figuring out where to stay in each city or how to get between the various cities was lifted off of our shoulders.It was nice to know that The tour would be shown where to go throughout each of the cities.
When the time for the tour came around, we headed over to the airport in anticipation for the overnight red eye to Rome ( YEAH!!!!). Aside from a slight delay in leaving the East Coast, the flight was smooth. We had chosen to fly in and out Rome since it gave us more choices for airlines, flight times and dates than flying into Venice. But it worked out really well because we were able to take a high speed train from downtown Rome up to Venice. It was nice to be able to just sit back in the train seat and allow the beautiful countryside zip right by. The tickets were really easy to buy via ticketing kiosks.
When we arrived in Venice train station, we transferred to the Vaperatto (water bus, a convent way to get around Venice in your free time) to travel the few stops to our Venice hotel.
To be honest, as the vaperatto was chugging along the Canal, I almost cried a little looking out at the houses and palazzos of Venice for the very first time. That evening we unpacked and got ready for the first full day in Venice the next day and meeting the rest of the tour group.
***Pro Tips***:
-The website, Visit A City is a spectacular site for itineraries or reference place for if you have some free time in any city.
- I had an acquaintance who had worked in the Vatican in the past who told me once that visiting Italy in the Fall months of October and November are actually Ideal because it it towards the end (or after) the peak tourist season and the weather is not as hot as in the summer months.
-When you need to Validate the ticket on the Platform before boarding the Train! but it is supper easy to just have the ticket validated with the yellow boxes on the Platform.
-The Rick Steves Site will list an itinerary for the tour under the pertinent information. It was helpful to compare the planned Group Itinerary against suggestions from sites like Visit a City, etc to plan your free time.
-Check the posted daily Itinerary the Guides post in the hotel. It helps to plan how when to buy tickets to various cultural locations online either in the morning or the day before.
-There is a Rick Steves Podcast App. The app is accessible through the App Store. The Podcasts are Rick and other people talking about various cultural locations. I would would suggest downloading the podcast to a location you are going to (like say the Sistine Chapel) when you are connected to Wi-Fi (like at the hotel) so that you are ready to start listening via your headphones or Airpods when the time comes.