Hamilton & Chase Tours
Best of Italy from Rome — Private Package 9-day Italy tour: Rome, Florence, Tuscany & Venice

9-Day Private Package Journey

Best of Italy from Rome

Rome, Florence, Tuscany & Venice

Available as Private Semi-Private Self-Guided
From €3,490 per person 9 days / 8 nights
View Itinerary

Tour Overview

9 days across Italy.

Italy's three greatest cities in nine days, beginning where the Western world began and ending where it built its most improbable monument. Rome gives you three days to move through twenty centuries without rushing; Florence follows with its Renaissance concentration and the Tuscany countryside within easy reach; and Venice completes the journey as the finale it has always been — arrived at by water, experienced on foot, and departing with the sense that it was designed by someone who wanted to make every other city feel ordinary. Every guide is a specialist, every hotel chosen for character and location, and every detail arranged so that nothing interrupts the experience.

Detailed Itinerary

Your journey, day by day.

Every day is designed with breathing room. Sleep in, take a detour, linger at lunch — the itinerary flexes around you, not the other way around.

Day 1 — Arrival in Rome
Day 1
1

Day 1

Arrival in Rome

The beginning — and Rome is always the right beginning.

Your private driver meets you at Fiumicino Airport and carries you into Rome along the Appian Way — the road the legions marched out on, its umbrella pines and crumbling tomb monuments unchanged in silhouette since antiquity. After settling into your hotel in the historic centre, the rest of the afternoon is yours. Rome yields its best first impressions without a guide: the Pantheon's portico, open to the street and free to enter; the Trevi Fountain in the early evening before the post-dinner crowds; Piazza Navona with Bernini's theatrical fountain and its outdoor cafés. Tonight, a welcome dinner at a restaurant your specialist has chosen: a Roman trattoria where the cacio e pepe is made properly and the artichoke is Roman rather than boiled.

  • Private transfer into Rome
  • Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Piazza Navona at leisure
  • Welcome dinner in Rome
4★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre
Day 2 — Rome Historic Centre
Day 2
2

Day 2

Rome Historic Centre

Baroque Rome — the popes spent well.

Your guide meets you after breakfast to take you through baroque Rome — the city built above the ancient one by popes and cardinals who funded Bernini, Borromini, and Caravaggio as instruments of Counter-Reformation propaganda and personal glory simultaneously. The morning begins at the Pantheon: the best-preserved building from antiquity, its concrete dome spanning forty-three metres without support, its oculus the only light source that tracks through the interior as the sun moves. Piazza Navona is next: built on the foundations of Domitian's stadium, whose ancient oval you can still see in its elongated shape, dominated by Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain — an allegory of the four continents so theatrical it might be a stage set. The Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain complete the circuit in the afternoon, and the Trastevere neighbourhood across the Tiber offers the best evening walk in Rome: the medieval streets, the ivy-covered churches, and the restaurants that have been there since before the tourists arrived.

  • Pantheon — Roman engineering at its most perfect
  • Piazza Navona and Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain
  • Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain
  • Trastevere neighbourhood evening walk
Meals: Breakfast 4★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre
Day 3 — Ancient Rome & Vatican
Day 3
3

Day 3

Ancient Rome & Vatican

From the empire that built the world to the church that inherited it.

Your archaeologist guide begins at the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill before the Colosseum: three interconnected sites that together tell the story of Rome's rise, apogee, and the physical remains it left behind. The Forum is the outdoor museum of temples, sacred roads, and triumphal arches that was the centre of a city of a million people; Palatine Hill is the founding hill whose imperial palaces commanded everything; and the Colosseum is the most recognisable building from antiquity — your guide opens the underground hypogeum, the tunnel network beneath the arena floor where the animals and fighters waited before the trap-door appearance that electrified the fifty thousand spectators above. The afternoon crosses the Tiber to Vatican City: the Vatican Museums, the Raphael Rooms, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica with your art historian. A full day, and exactly the right length.

  • Roman Forum and Palatine Hill
  • Colosseum skip-the-line with underground access
  • Vatican Museums and Raphael Rooms
  • Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica
Meals: Breakfast 4★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre
Day 4 — Rome to Florence
Day 4
4

Day 4

Rome to Florence

The eternal city gives way to the Renaissance.

A last Roman morning — the Borghese Gallery is a forty-five minute timed visit with some of Bernini's greatest sculpture in an intimate villa setting, and worth booking in advance; alternatively, the Trastevere morning market or a final coffee at a bar in the Campo de' Fiori. Late morning, the Frecciarossa north from Roma Termini: 1h30m through the Roman countryside and Tuscan hills, Brunelleschi's dome visible above the Florence roofline as the train approaches. Your private driver meets you at Santa Maria Novella station and delivers you to your hotel. Spend the afternoon on the Oltrarno side of the Arno — the artisan quarter, the views back across the river to the city, and a sunset from the Piazzale Michelangelo if the legs have enough left.

  • Optional: Borghese Gallery morning in Rome
  • High-speed Frecciarossa Rome–Florence
  • Oltrarno neighbourhood and Arno views
  • Piazzale Michelangelo sunset panorama
Meals: Breakfast 4★ centrally located hotel, Florence historic centre
Day 5 — Florence Renaissance Highlights
Day 5
5

Day 5

Florence Renaissance Highlights

Botticelli, Brunelleschi, and the city that invented the modern world.

Your art historian guide meets you after breakfast to take you through Florence's essential spaces. The Baptistery of San Giovanni — whose gilded doors Michelangelo called the Gates of Paradise — anchors the morning, with the Duomo complex providing the engineering marvel: Brunelleschi's dome, spanning forty-four metres without centring, solved a structural problem that had defeated architects for a century. The walk continues to Piazza della Signoria's outdoor sculpture collection and to the Ponte Vecchio, whose goldsmith shops have occupied these medieval rooms since Cosimo I de' Medici banned the butchers in 1593. The Uffizi Gallery or the Accademia follows: your guide leads you through either collection with the knowledge of which rooms to linger in and which paintings change the way you see everything that came after. The afternoon is Florence at your own pace.

  • Baptistery Gates of Paradise
  • Brunelleschi's Dome and Duomo complex
  • Uffizi Gallery — Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael
  • Accademia — Michelangelo's David
Meals: Breakfast 4★ centrally located hotel, Florence historic centre
Day 6 — Tuscany Day Trip
Day 6
6

Day 6

Tuscany Day Trip

The hills, the towers, and the wine that built the Florentine state.

Your private vehicle heads south from Florence into the Chianti hills — the landscape of cypress-lined roads, vineyard terraces, and medieval towers that is itself a work of art and has been since the Florentine and Sienese republics competed for it in the Middle Ages. San Gimignano arrives first: fourteen towers above a hilltop town whose walls, streets, and vernaccia wine have remained largely unchanged since Dante passed through. Your guide leads you through the piazza and up one of the surviving towers for the view that explains why these positions were worth armies. The road continues south to Siena — the most complete medieval city in Italy, whose Campo is one of the finest public spaces in Europe and whose Duomo's marble floor is a world of narrative in polychrome stone. A Chianti estate tasting on the return to Florence closes the day with the wine that financed everything you've seen.

  • San Gimignano medieval towers and hilltop views
  • Siena's Piazza del Campo
  • Siena Cathedral inlaid marble floor
  • Chianti Classico estate wine tasting
Meals: Breakfast 4★ centrally located hotel, Florence historic centre
Day 7 — Florence to Venice
Day 7
7

Day 7

Florence to Venice

By train to the city that water built.

A Florence morning — the Boboli Gardens, the Brancacci Chapel, or the artisan workshops of the Oltrarno — before the Frecciarossa north: two hours through the Po Valley and then the Venetian lagoon spreading on both sides of the causeway. Your private motorboat meets you at Santa Lucia station steps for the water-borne arrival: through the back channels first, where the ordinary life of the city passes — delivery boats, vaporetti, a cat on a step — and then into the Grand Canal where the palazzo facades rise from the water and everything makes sense. Check into your hotel, find the nearest bacaro in Cannaregio or Dorsoduro, and order cicchetti with a glass of Soave. This is the correct start to Venice.

  • Final Florence morning at leisure
  • High-speed Frecciarossa Florence–Venice
  • Private motorboat arrival through the Venetian canals
  • First evening in Venice
Meals: Breakfast 4★ hotel near Grand Canal, Venice
Day 8 — Venice Highlights
Day 8
8

Day 8

Venice Highlights

The golden basilica, the maritime palace, and the city that hides in plain sight.

Your Venetian art historian meets you in the morning for a day that moves between the spectacular and the intimate. St. Mark's Basilica early: the gold mosaic ceiling, the Pala d'Oro altarpiece whose jewels represent centuries of Venetian conquest, and the four bronze horses above the entrance that the Venetians took from Constantinople in 1204. The Doge's Palace reveals the machinery of a republic that governed its empire for a thousand years: the Great Council Chamber with Tintoretto's Paradise spanning an entire wall, the Bridge of Sighs above the prison where Casanova was held in 1755. In the afternoon, your guide leads you away from St. Mark's into the neighborhoods that the tour groups never reach: the Dorsoduro Zattere promenade, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco with its Tintoretto ceiling cycle, the Campo Santa Margherita where the Venetians themselves spend their evenings. Optional gondola at dusk — the Grand Canal in the golden hour, nothing between you and the palazzi.

  • St. Mark's Basilica — gold mosaics and Pala d'Oro
  • Doge's Palace and Bridge of Sighs
  • Scuola Grande di San Rocco
  • Dorsoduro neighbourhood and Optional gondola
Meals: Breakfast 4★ hotel near Grand Canal, Venice
Day 9 — Departure
Day 9
9

Day 9

Departure

Three cities, nine days — Italy has kept something of you.

Your last Venetian morning: espresso standing at a bar in Cannaregio, a last crossing of the Rialto Bridge, perhaps the Rialto market where the restaurants buy their fish at six and you can browse at eight. At the agreed time, your private motorboat carries you across the lagoon to Marco Polo Airport. Your travel specialist remains reachable until you're home — and a few days after your return will be in touch to hear which city is already on your list for next time.

  • Final Venice morning at leisure
  • Rialto market and Grand Canal
  • Private motorboat to Marco Polo Airport
Meals: Breakfast

Where You'll Stay

Hand-picked hotels, every night.

We choose properties for character, location, and the kind of service that makes you feel looked after — not just checked in. Every hotel can be swapped for an alternative if you prefer.

4★ centrally located hotel, Rome

Rome

3 nights

4★ centrally located hotel

Historic centre

Walking distance to the Forum, Vatican, Pantheon, and Rome's best restaurants and markets

4★ centrally located hotel, Florence

Florence

3 nights

4★ centrally located hotel

Historic centre

Three nights allows a Tuscany day and a free afternoon in Florence — the right amount of time

4★ hotel near Grand Canal, Venice

Venice

2 nights

4★ hotel near Grand Canal

San Marco or Cannaregio

Canal view rooms available; position near the Grand Canal for easy access to all areas

Hotels shown are indicative of the standard we book. Upon request, we will provide a detailed itinerary with specific hotel options tailored to your preferences and budget.

What's in the Price

Included

  • 8 nights in 4★ centrally located hotels (double occupancy)
  • Daily breakfast at each hotel
  • Private airport transfer in Rome
  • Private water taxi from Venice station and to Venice airport
  • High-speed Frecciarossa train tickets (Rome–Florence, Florence–Venice)
  • All station transfers in private vehicles
  • Private expert guides in Rome (2 days), Florence, and Venice
  • Tuscany day trip by private vehicle
  • Skip-the-line access at Colosseum, Vatican, and Forum
  • All entrance fees included in guided visits
  • 24/7 travel specialist support throughout your trip
  • Hamilton & Chase digital travel booklet with restaurant and local recommendations

Not Included

  • International flights to Rome / from Venice
  • Travel insurance (required — we can arrange coverage on request)
  • Meals not mentioned in the itinerary
  • Personal expenses (shopping, additional tastings, gondola rides)
  • Gratuities for guides and drivers (optional but appreciated)
  • City tax (collected directly by hotels, typically €3–6 per person per night)

Good to Know

  • This itinerary travels Rome → Florence → Venice — the most natural geographic direction for an open-jaw flight itinerary.
  • All guides and experiences are arranged exclusively for your group — never shared with other travellers.
  • The Tuscany day (Day 6) can be swapped for Cinque Terre, Pisa, or Lucca depending on preference.
  • Comfortable walking shoes are essential throughout — cobblestones, museum floors, and Venice's stone paths all demand good footwear.
  • Flexible booking: adjust or postpone your dates up to 60 days before departure at no charge.

Make It Yours

Optional add-ons & upgrades.

Every trip is different. These extras can be woven into your itinerary — just let your travel specialist know what catches your eye.

Borghese Gallery Rome morning

Bernini's sculpture collection in a Baroque villa — timed visit, advance booking essential, unmissable for those interested in baroque art

From €75 pp

Florence cooking class

A morning at a cooking school — market, pasta, ragù, and a proper lunch with matched wines

From €130 pp

Venice lagoon islands tour

Private boat to Murano glassblowers and Burano fishing village — the other Venice, accessible only by water

From €120 pp

Venice gondola serenata

A private gondola with a musician at dusk — the Grand Canal in the golden hour with music echoing off the palazzi

From €180 pp

Professional photo session

Portrait sessions at the Colosseum, Ponte Vecchio, or Venetian canals with a local photographer

From €350

"This was exactly the Italy trip we'd been trying to plan for fifteen years. Starting in Rome and ending in Venice is the right direction — the three cities build on each other perfectly. Hamilton & Chase handled everything flawlessly and the guides were exceptional."

Daniel & Julia R.

San Francisco, CA · Best of Italy from Rome, May 2025

Common Questions

Questions about this trip.

How does this differ from the Best of Italy (Venice first) itinerary?

This version begins in Rome and ends in Venice, which many guests prefer — the lagoon city works beautifully as a grand finale. The Rome-first version also allows for a more relaxed arrival: Rome's airport transfers are simpler than Venice's water taxi system. The cities, guides, and experiences are the same in both versions.

Can we add the Amalfi Coast?

Yes — the natural extension adds 3 nights based in Sorrento between Rome and Florence. You'd fly into Rome, spend 3 days in Rome, then transfer south for Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast before the train north to Florence. The combined itinerary is one of our most popular Italy offerings.

Private Package Journey

Best of Italy from Rome

9 days / 8 nights

From €3,490

per person

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