Hamilton & Chase Tours
The Grand Tour: Palaces & Private Collections — Bespoke 10-day Italy tour: Turin to Rome, with access to collections that rarely open their doors.

10-Day Bespoke Journey

The Grand Tour: Palaces & Private Collections

Turin to Rome, with access to collections that rarely open their doors.

Available as Private Semi-Private Self-Guided
From €5,890 per person 10 days / 9 nights
View Itinerary

Tour Overview

10 days across Italy.

In the 18th century, the Grand Tour was the finishing education of the European aristocracy — a slow circuit through Italy's great cities, private palaces, and classical ruins that was considered essential preparation for anyone who intended to govern, collect, or create. The Tour has never really ended. This ten-day private journey follows its original geography with access that 18th-century travellers would have recognised: aristocratic collections not open to the public, private galleries accessed through introductions, after-hours visits to the great museums, and stays in palaces where the furniture has been there since the Grand Tourists first sat on it. Turin to Florence to Rome, with detours into the countryside that the Grand Tourists found more revealing than the cities. This is for travellers who want to see Italy at the level that money alone cannot buy.

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 — Turin: The First Capital
Day 1
1

Day 1

Turin: The First Capital

Baroque boulevards and a royal house's extraordinary collections.

Turin was the capital of the House of Savoy before it was the capital of Italy, and the city was built to reflect both ambitions. The colonnaded streets of the centro storico, the piazzas modelled on Versailles, the Egyptian Museum — the largest outside Cairo — and the extraordinary Museo Egizio all speak of a royal house that collected seriously across three centuries. You arrive in time for the late afternoon passeggiata under the arcades of the Via Po and Via Roma, and for aperitivo at one of the Torinese café-pastry houses where the tradition of the Negroni predates the city's industrial fame. Your hotel is one of the Savoy palaces converted — a suite where the wallpaper is original and the portraits are not reproductions.

  • Private transfer to Turin's palace hotel
  • Colonnaded centro storico — Via Po and Via Roma
  • Aperitivo in a historic Torinese café
  • First evening in Piedmont
5★ historic palace hotel, Turin centro
Day 2 — The Savoy Collections
Day 2
2

Day 2

The Savoy Collections

What three centuries of royal collecting looks like.

The Savoy family collected relentlessly for three centuries, and the result is a series of royal residences and palaces in and around Turin that contain one of the most significant concentrations of art, furniture, and decorative objects in Europe. Your private guide begins at the Palazzo Reale — the Royal Palace on the Piazza Castello — and moves through rooms that have been restored to their 18th-century appearance: the staterooms where the King of Sardinia received Napoleon, the armoury, the china room with its 18th-century Meissen service. Then, by arrangement, access to the Galleria Sabauda, whose Flemish and Dutch collections include Van Eycks and Rembrandts that few visitors outside Turin know exist. In the afternoon, the Egyptian Museum: the Savoys began collecting Egyptian antiquities in the 18th century and the collection is staggering in its completeness. A Piedmontese dinner at a restaurant near the Quadrilatero Romano: vitello tonnato, agnolotti del plin, and the best Barolo within fifty kilometres.

  • Private Palazzo Reale tour — restored 18th-century staterooms
  • Galleria Sabauda — Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Flemish masters
  • Museo Egizio — the world's second-largest Egyptian collection
  • Piedmontese dinner with Barolo
Meals: Breakfast 5★ historic palace hotel, Turin
Day 3 — Genoa: The Republic's Palaces
Day 3
3

Day 3

Genoa: The Republic's Palaces

The city that financed European empires.

Genoa was for two centuries the financial capital of Europe — the Genoese banking families financed the Spanish empire, the Habsburg armies, and the construction of most of northern Italy's great churches. The wealth is still visible in the Strada Nuova, the 16th-century street of noble palaces that UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site as a complete urban ensemble. The Palazzo Rosso, the Palazzo Bianco, and the Palazzo Doria-Tursi form a triptych of private family collections converted to museums: Van Dyck's portraits of the Genoese nobility are here, painted in Genoa during his time in Italy before he went to England to become court painter to Charles I. In the afternoon, a private introduction to a Genoese family whose palazzo is not open to the public — the kind of room where the ceiling frescoes were painted by Luca Cambiaso and the furniture has not moved since 1780.

  • Strada Nuova UNESCO palaces — Rosso, Bianco, Doria-Tursi
  • Van Dyck portraits of the Genoese nobility
  • Private access to a historic noble palazzo
  • Genoese cuisine: focaccia, pesto, fresh fish
Meals: Breakfast 5★ hotel, Genoa centro storico
Day 4 — The Ligurian Riviera
Day 4
4

Day 4

The Ligurian Riviera

The coastline that made the Grand Tourists weep.

The Ligurian coast was one of the Grand Tour's great diversions — the light, the olive terraces, the fishing villages impossibly steep above the sea. Portofino is the most famous and most storied: a tiny harbour town that has attracted writers, painters, and admirers since the 18th century, its houses painted in the ochres and umbers that the Grand Tourists sketched obsessively. A private boat from Santa Margherita takes you into Portofino harbour, past the great yachts, to the church of San Giorgio above the headland with its view of the Ligurian coast stretching both ways. Lunch at a restaurant on the water: branzino, octopus, the local Vermentino. The afternoon at leisure in the village before the drive to your Florentine hotel. You arrive in Florence as the city is sitting down to dinner.

  • Private boat into Portofino harbour
  • San Giorgio church and Ligurian headland views
  • Seafood lunch on the Portofino waterfront
  • Drive south to Florence
Meals: Breakfast 5★ historic hotel, Florence
Day 5 — Florence: The Medici Inheritance
Day 5
5

Day 5

Florence: The Medici Inheritance

The city that created the Renaissance and still holds most of it.

Florence is the centre of gravity for any serious Grand Tour and deserves its own unhurried pace. Your private guide is an art historian whose specialty is Medici patronage — the connection between political power and aesthetic ambition that produced the Uffizi, the Bargello, and the Palazzo Pitti. The morning begins at the Uffizi in the first hour after opening, when the crowds have not yet arrived and the Botticelli rooms are genuinely quiet. The guide explains the Primavera not as decoration but as political argument — an image made for a specific family crisis in a specific political moment. The Bargello after lunch: Donatello's David (the first nude male figure since antiquity), Michelangelo's early works, the Flemish tapestries. The evening at Palazzo Pitti, which the Medici bought from the Pitti family in 1550 and expanded into the largest palace in Florence — your access includes a private tour of the Palatine Gallery after closing hours, when the Titians and Raphaels hang in lamplight.

  • Uffizi at opening — Botticelli rooms without crowds
  • Bargello: Donatello, Michelangelo's early marbles
  • Palazzo Pitti Palatine Gallery after-hours private access
  • Titians and Raphaels in lamplight
Meals: Breakfast 5★ historic hotel, Florence
Day 6 — Florentine Private Collections
Day 6
6

Day 6

Florentine Private Collections

The Italy that doesn't appear in guidebooks.

Florence's most interesting collections are not in the public museums. Florentine aristocratic families have been collecting since the Medici, and some of those collections remain in private hands in the palazzi where they were assembled over generations. Through Hamilton & Chase's long-standing relationships with specific families, your morning includes a private visit to a collection not open to the public — a 15th-century palazzo whose ground floor rooms contain bronzes, majolica, and altarpieces that the family has lived with for three centuries. The host talks about the objects in the way that only someone who grew up among them can: not as catalogue entries but as old acquaintances. The afternoon is at leisure — the Oltrarno neighbourhood across the Arno, the Brancacci Chapel's Masaccio frescoes, the artisan workshops of the Via dei Serragli. Dinner in Oltrarno at a restaurant that supplies its wine from its own estate in Chianti.

  • Private access to a Florentine aristocratic collection
  • Fifteenth-century palazzo — bronzes, majolica, altarpieces
  • Brancacci Chapel: Masaccio frescoes that taught Michelangelo
  • Oltrarno artisan workshops and private estate dinner
Meals: Breakfast 5★ historic hotel, Florence
Day 7 — Siena & the Sienese Masters
Day 7
7

Day 7

Siena & the Sienese Masters

The city that lost the race with Florence and kept its character.

Siena lost the competition with Florence for Tuscan dominance in the 14th century — and the effect was to preserve the city almost perfectly from that point forward. No further development was needed: the Gothic cathedral, the Piazza del Campo, and the network of Contrade neighbourhoods stand today as they stood in 1350. Your guide meets you at the Campo and leads you through the Palazzo Pubblico's extraordinary room: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government, painted in 1338 as a civic argument about what good governance produces, remains the most ambitious secular fresco cycle in medieval Italy. In the afternoon, by private arrangement: access to a Contrada museum — the neighbourhood societies that organise the Palio horse race maintain extraordinary collections of historical costume, racing equipment, and ceremonial objects in their private museums, open only to members and those brought by members.

  • Palazzo Pubblico — Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government
  • Piazza del Campo at leisure
  • Private Contrada museum access — Palio history and ceremonial collections
  • Medieval Sienese streets and the Gothic cathedral
Meals: Breakfast 5★ hotel, Siena intra-mural
Day 8 — Val d'Orcia & a Villa
Day 8
8

Day 8

Val d'Orcia & a Villa

The landscape that painters used as background for centuries.

The Val d'Orcia is a UNESCO World Heritage Landscape — a designation that acknowledges what every painter from the 15th century onward recognised: this is one of the most perfectly composed natural landscapes on earth. The white gravel roads, the ridge-top cypress trees, the hilltowns of Pienza and Montalcino visible for miles across the valley — everything about it looks curated, and in a sense it was: the Florentines improved it deliberately for five centuries as the backdrop of their country retreats. Your day includes a private visit to one of the great Orcia valley villas — not a hotel, but a private estate whose owners receive a very small number of guests each year for lunch and a tour of the gardens, which were laid out in the 16th century and contain specimen trees from four continents. The afternoon is free in Pienza, the perfectly designed Renaissance hilltop town that Pius II built as his ideal city.

  • Private Val d'Orcia villa visit — 16th-century gardens and lunch
  • Pienza: the Renaissance ideal city
  • Val d'Orcia UNESCO landscape — white roads, cypress ridges
  • Montalcino fortress at leisure
Meals: Breakfast 5★ hotel, near Montalcino / Pienza
Day 9 — Rome: The Classical Inheritance
Day 9
9

Day 9

Rome: The Classical Inheritance

The city that all Grand Tourists eventually arrived at.

Every Grand Tour ended in Rome — the city that contained more visible evidence of Western civilisation's origins than any other place on earth and still does. Your private guide on the final full day is a classicist who has been working the Roman archaeology for twenty years: the Palatine Hill in the morning, where the Republican-era houses and the palace of Augustus stand in the same overgrown state that 18th-century Grand Tourists found them, with the Forum stretching below and the Colosseum on the far side. The afternoon at the Galleria Borghese — by appointment only, the right way to see Bernini's Persephone and Apollo and Daphne. In the evening, a private dinner arranged in the rooms of a Roman palazzo whose owners make it available for intimate evenings by introduction: the kind of dining room where the Fragonard drawings are not reproductions and the host knows where they were acquired.

  • Palatine Hill and Forum with classicist guide
  • Galleria Borghese — Bernini's Persephone, Apollo and Daphne
  • Private dinner in a historic Roman palazzo
  • The Grand Tour conclusion in the city that began it all
Meals: Breakfast 5★ historic hotel, Rome
Day 10 — Rome & Departure
Day 10
10

Day 10

Rome & Departure

The Forum one last time, and then the world.

The last Grand Tour morning is deliberately unscheduled. Rome rewards exactly this — wandering without an agenda, coffee at the bar where the regulars stand, the Pantheon before nine when the light comes through the oculus at a low angle and the tourists have not yet arrived. The Campo de' Fiori flower market. The neighbourhood of Prati across the Tiber, which the Grand Tourists did not visit because it was fields, and which now has the best pizza al taglio in the city. Your driver collects you at the agreed time for Fiumicino. Some guests begin planning the return before the plane has left Roman airspace.

  • Rome at leisure — Pantheon morning light
  • Campo de' Fiori flower market
  • Private transfer to Fiumicino
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.

5★ historic palace hotel, Turin

Turin

2 nights

5★ historic palace hotel

Centro storico, near Piazza San Carlo

A former Savoy palace — the building is part of the experience

5★ hotel, Genoa

Genoa

1 night

5★ hotel

Historic centre near Strada Nuova

Within the UNESCO-designated heritage zone

5★ historic hotel, Florence

Florence

3 nights

5★ historic hotel

Historic centre — Oltrarno or near Santa Croce

Our preferred properties are Renaissance or Baroque palaces; specific recommendation depends on availability and your preferences

5★ hotel or estate, Siena / Val d'Orcia

Siena / Val d'Orcia

2 nights

5★ hotel or estate

Siena intra-mural or Val d'Orcia countryside

Option to stay within Siena's walls or at a countryside estate in the Val d'Orcia for the landscape experience

5★ historic hotel, Rome

Rome

2 nights

5★ historic hotel

Historic centre near the Pantheon or Villa Borghese

Properties with direct access to the classical city — ideally within the Aurelian walls

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

  • 9 nights in 5★ historic hotels and palace properties
  • Daily breakfast at your hotel
  • Private access to Florentine aristocratic collection
  • Private access to Sienese Contrada museum
  • Uffizi, Bargello, and Palazzo Pitti Palatine Gallery visits
  • Galleria Borghese visit (advance booking required)
  • Expert private guides throughout — art historians and classicists
  • Private boat in Portofino
  • All private vehicle transfers throughout
  • All entrance fees for included visits
  • 24/7 travel specialist support
  • Hamilton & Chase digital travel booklet with collector and property background

Not Included

  • International flights
  • Travel insurance (required — we can arrange on request)
  • Meals not listed in the itinerary
  • Personal purchases
  • Gratuities for guides and drivers

Good to Know

  • Private access arrangements depend on the cooperation of specific families and owners — your specialist will confirm which accesses are available for your travel dates.
  • The Galleria Borghese requires advance booking; your specialist handles this as part of the itinerary planning.
  • This itinerary can be extended to include Naples and Pompeii — the original Grand Tour included both.
  • Accommodation in historic palace properties varies by availability; your specialist will present options appropriate to your dates.
  • All guides are independent specialists — art historians, classicists, and family-connected guides with generational knowledge of specific properties.

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.

Private Sistine Chapel access at dawn

The Vatican Museums before public opening — the Sistine Chapel entirely to your group, with a Vatican scholar who spent fifteen years studying the ceiling

Price on Request

Venaria Reale half-day extension

The Savoy's Versailles — the palace of Venaria Reale outside Turin, currently mid-restoration, with access to rooms not yet open to the public

Price on Request

Chianti wine estate overnight

A night at a Chianti Classico estate between Florence and Siena — the private guest suite, a barrel tasting, and a dinner cooked entirely from the estate's kitchen garden

Price on Request

Vatican private collections tour

Access to the Vatican's non-public collections — the Lapidary Gallery, the historical maps, the meteorite collection — with a specialist guide from the Vatican Museums staff

Price on Request

"The private palazzo in Florence — we still talk about it. Standing in a room where the family has lived for five hundred years, with the original furniture and the portraits of the ancestors on the walls, and the owner explaining which commission was political and which was personal. No hotel or museum can give you that."

William & Alice F.

Boston, USA · The Grand Tour, September 2024

Common Questions

Questions about this trip.

What does 'private access' to a palazzo actually mean?

These are visits to private homes — palazzi still owned by the original families — arranged through long-standing personal introductions. The hosts typically accompany guests themselves, or designate a family member to do so. The visit is personal, not commercial, and the number of guests must be small. We arrange a maximum of six guests for these visits.

Can the itinerary include Venice?

Yes — Venice can be added as a two or three-day extension, either at the start before Turin or at the end. Venice has its own extraordinary collection of private palazzo visits available through our network. A Venice extension makes this a twelve or thirteen-day itinerary.

Bespoke Journey

The Grand Tour: Palaces & Private Collections

10 days / 9 nights

From €5,890

per person

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