ITALIAN WINTER SAMPLER - 2009

11 days incl. travel, or 10 days from Rome to Rome (XI)

Return to European Winter Vacations

Vacation Overview

Visit the major cities in Italy as well as Assisi, Verona, Sorrento, Capri, and a 2-night stay at the Amalfi Coast. Enjoy guided sightseeing in Rome, and visit St. Peter's, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum and the Roman Forum; in Venice, and visit St. Mark's Basilica, Doges' Palace and the Bridge of Sighs; and in Florence, and visit Michelangelo's David and more. Also visit St. Francis’ Basilica in Assisi, take pictures of Juliet’s balcony in Verona, relax at the Amalfi Coast, explore Sorrento, and sail to the Isle of Capri before returning to Rome. A wonderful vacation!

Special Departures:
December 17 - Christmas Eve in Amalfi Coast
December 24 - New Year's Eve in Amalfi Coast

Things to see on your vacation: View Vacation Photo Slideshow

A Vacation Story Doges Palace and Casanova

"The only prisoner to ever escape from the Doge’s Palace was also Venice’s most famous lover – Giacamo Casanova. The fashionable young man-about-town was arrested by the secret police in 1755 for making blasphemous jokes and thrown into the cells called the Piombi, or Leads. (Named after the palace’s lead roof, they were located in its hot, airless attic.) The spurious charge was evidently trumped up by one of the elderly Venetian magistrates, who were enraged that Casanova was courting his mistress."