Italy Trip

Since 1972, I have been leading tours in Italy and in the USA (for Italians). Contact me for information or requests for specific places in Italy that you would like to visit. A wide variety of trips are possible at any time of the year.

For example, a summer trip to Tuscany is wonderful to see the beautiful countryside, the excellent food, and the world famous wines. Travelers stay in small hotels and rent a car to visit small hilltop villages as well as major cities like Florence and Siena.

Or, let me plan a visit for you to the Eternal City of Rome to see Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, the Pantheon, and the Coliseum and much more.

Below are details of a trip that is planned for March 2008.

I’ll lead a tour of Pisa, Florence, and Venice in March 2008. The flight to Italy will depart on 7 March 2008 (leaving on a Friday from the USA and arriving in Italy on Saturday, 8 March 2008). The return flight to the USA will be on Sunday, 16 March 2008.

Highlights of the trip are detailed below. Note that excellent four-star hotels and small restaurants with outstanding cuisine are used exclusively.

A visit to the center of Pisa and the Piazza dei Miracoli where the famous Leaning Tower is located and the lunch in the vicinity at an excellent small, family run trattoria in an historic building. In Florence you will check in at a four-star hotel located near the Duomo and the Accademia. An evening may be spent strolling through the important piazze of the city. Always on view are the famous Ponte Vecchio, the Piazza della Signoria, the facade of the Duomo, Giotto’s Tower, and other beautiful sites.

We shall see Santa Maria Novella, the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria delle Carmine, and Santa Croce, to name a few. After lunch, the shops begin to open. Florence is a good place to look for leather and jewelry.

No visit to Florence is complete without a visit to Michelangelo’s David in the Accademia or without a visit to the Uffizi. The latter contains works from Giotto, Massacio, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo that are not to be missed.

After a three hour train from Florence to Venice you will check in at a four-star hotel. The evening will be spent walking and enjoying the special ambience of Venice and having a great meal. (Prosecco in Piazza San Marco.)

After a short walk to Fondamente Nuove, a vaporetto can be boarded to explore the northern islands of the lagoon, where Venice was first settled. The first destination is Torcello where there is a church that was built in the seventh century. It is next to an inn where Hemingway stayed while working on one of his late novels. Also, a visit to the island of Burano where lace making is the famous local tradition. After lunch we’ll take a thirty-minute vaporetto ride back to San Marco. A short vaporetto ride across the Bacino to the small island San Giorgio Maggiore is particularly beautiful late in the afternoon. A sunset from the top of the campanile (it has an elevator) is spectacular as it encompasses a view of all of Venice.
The Accademia is Venice's chief art museum and it contains an excellent survey of Venetian painting from the 14th century to the present. Afterwards you will be in the neighborhood where Katherine Hepburn was filmed in the 1955 movie 'Summertime.' It is worth seeing before or after our trip (or both) because it is a beautiful love story and it is filmed entirely in Venice. After lunch in the same neighborhood (Dorsoduro) we can walk through the area of Campo Santa Margarita. It is where there are more Venetians than tourists. There will be opportunities to shop all along the way.

Take a vaporetto from San Marco that goes along the Grand Canal. It is the 'local' bus for Venice and it will stop at every 'fermata' along the canal. As it does so, it crisscrosses the waterway and you will see all the great palazzi along the 'Canalazzo.' We shall get off at Ca D’Oro, which is a 14th century palazzo that has been restored and made into a museum. From the Ca DíOro we walk along Strada Nuova heading north to the area of the Ghetto. Along the way are restaurants, shops, and a variety of churches with interesting architecture, paintings, and sculpture.

The projected cost per person is $3150.00 (based upon double occupancy and the value of the Euro at $1.35). The cost includes the flights; the hotel rooms (with breakfast); taxi travel within Pisa, Florence, and Venice (vaporetti and traghetti which navigate the canals); and the mainland (trains). Food expenses (lunch and dinner) will be extra and determined by each individual. There will be daily tours, all of which are optional. The opportunity to shop will be great. A deposit of $1500 per person should be sent to Doug Sassi by the first of December 2007.

For further information contact:
Doug Sassi
410-348-5073
info@sassipottery.com

Mailing Address:

Doug Sassi
P.O. Box 83
Still Pond, MD 21667