Benvenuti a Roma! Upon arrival, transfer to the city to check-in to your hotel. Enjoy dinner at a local restaurant with the group. D

This morning, leave Rome behind as you cross the Tiber and enter the independent city-state of the Vatican for a guided tour. View impressive works of art that make up the Vatican’s 500 year old collection, including Assyrian, Etruscan and Palestinian antiquities, as well as tapestries, mosaics, ceramics, and religious art. Within the Vatican Museums you will discover the impressive Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. See Bernini’s legacy, St. Peter’s Square, and visit St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest church in the world. This afternoon visit the Borghese Gallery, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. The gallery houses a considerable part of the Borghese collection of paintings, sculpture and antiquities, begun by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V (1605–1621). Enjoy the astonishing green gardens which are the third largest park in Rome, that surround the gallery. Dinner at a local restaurant. B

Transfer by metro to the Colosseum & Roman Forum for a visit led by your tour leader. Discover the Colosseum, the largest amphitheater ever built having an average audience of 65,000. It was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts re-enactments of famous battles. Then, take a walk through the epic Roman Forum with the group and imagine how it was when it was the center of day-to-day life in Rome. On to The Basilica di San Clemente, a minor basilica dedicated to Pope Clement I. This temple is remarkable because archaeologically, it records the history of Rome from the beginning of Christianity up until the Middle Ages. Visit The Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of the Augustan Peace), built to celebrate Augustus’ return (13 BCE) from his campaigns in Spain and Gaul. The marble structure once stood on the Campus Martius and is a masterpiece of Roman sculpture. B, D

Enjoy breakfast at the hotel, then board your private motor coach and set off on a journey to Pompeii, the Roman city both destroyed and preserved by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius more than 2000 years ago. Today’s guided tour will show you real Roman life in the excavated bakeries, wine shops, groceries, and villas that were buried in ash. Enjoy a stop on the beautiful Amalfi coast. Return to Rome. B

Transfer to Florence via private motor coach. See Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of David in the Accademia Museum as you tour its extensive collections. Founded by the powerful Medici family, the museum also houses works by Botticelli, Giambologna and Carravaggio, to name a few.  Visit Fiesole nearby to see excavations of early Etruscan and Roman architecture, where Leonardo da Vinci tested his flying machines. Then, learn the special style of Florentine cooking in a class with the group, followed by dinner.  B, D

Journey to Siena, where its Piazza del Campo is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, home of the Palio, the world’s most famous horserace in the world. Next, visit San Gimigniano known as the “city of beautiful towers,” which originally had 72 towers and where 14 remain. The town rises above Tuscany’s Elsa Valley that make it look like a medieval dreamscape. Return to Florence. B 

Enjoy breakfast at the hotel. Begin your day with a visit of the incomparable art collections of the Uffizi Gallery. One of the oldest and most famous art museums in the Western world, it is home to a select group of only the finest masterpieces of exceptional value including Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Then make your way to the Brancacci Chapel, which has one of the supreme masterpieces of renaissance painting: The fresco cycle of scenes from the life of St. Peter. B

Today visit the San Marco Museum, a masterpiece in its own right by the fifteenth-century architect Michelozzo, is a building of first historical importance for the city and contains the most extensive collection in the world of the works of Fra Angelico. Meet the group for a farewell dinner to share your memories from your experience in Italy this week. B, D