Mimillion

Tuscany in the summer gets fairly congested so your driver may be right in that although the wineries aren't too far in distance it might take a while to get there, if you give yourself plenty of time however you should be ok, are you on the celebrity constellation by any chance?

I don't know who Rick Steve is but I would recommend the Lonely Planet forum or trip advisor forum to find up to date info, who needs guidebooks now when you have the Internet? Lol

As a Brit who spends a lot of time in Italy I really don't know why anyone would want to hire a tour guide to go anywhere, the main cities of Rome, Venice, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Naples etc are just crying out to be explored independently, if you are stuck just jump on a city sightseeing bus which always stop at the main tourist spots. Sorry if I'm not being helpful but honestly you will enjoy it more if you do it on your own.

As soon as you get to Rome go to the Roman forum and get a combination ticket for the forum and the colosseum, you can spend an hour or two in the forum then go to the colosseum without queuing, don't use an outside agency you will pay twice the price.

Hope this is helpful even, blast auto correct!

If you buy a regionalé train ticket in Italy you can use it on any regionalé train within a certain number of days, it's a fairly long period of time, at least 28 days. You have to validate it on the day you use it though and then you have so many hours to get to your destination, you will always have enough time to stop off for an hour or two somewhere before continuing on your journey, if the conductor checks your ticket he/she is not bothered about the time you validated your ticket just the date. If you get a Frecciarossa, frecciabianca or frecciargento train you will ALWAYS have a certain train you need to get, these are the fast trains that go from the mainline stations, you can't break your journey on these trains. Be aware the regionalé trains are a lot slower, stopping at every station along the way. He this is helpful.

This might seem like a stupid question and I think Travel Agents in the U.S. must be different to ones in the UK because if you have booked the cruise on the ship why do you need a T.A? I can say hand on heart that I have never used one and have travelled all over the world, they have to make a profit somehow so in the long run you will be paying more for something!

Hi Blondie008,

Can you tell me where your "fave club" is in Mallorca please? Never been before and are there next week on a Costa Serena cruise.