From 7 Weeks to Seamless: Designing a Family’s First Trip to Italy
Spring Break Family Trip -- 1 week in Rome and Florence
“My family had a wonderful Spring Break trip to Rome and Florence thanks to the fantastically curated ideas and thoughtful planning of private tour guides, hotels, and private transfers provided by Samantha Liss of Broadmoor Travel. To have 2 teenagers rave about their family trip to friends was a sure win!
Upon receiving Samantha's contact information from a friend, I reached out to Samantha with as little as 7 weeks to discuss the planning of a 1 week trip to Italy. Samantha responded immediately by scheduling time for us to talk about the type of trip that I envisioned, my family preferences and any must haves and must not haves. As this was a first trip to Europe for my children and a first trip to Italy for my husband and me, I wanted to ensure that we saw the most memorable parts of 2-3 locations with informative tour guides and fast access passes to location highlights while also permitting time for our own exploration. And we also wanted to spend the majority of our time experiencing the locations through walking. Samantha suggested 4 nights in Rome and 2 nights in Florence for memorable cultural experience in 2 prominent Italian cities. She used her global network to arrange city specific activities for us. within 1 week we had a draft itinerary. Within 2 weeks we finalized our itinerary. Samantha and her network established a What's App chat with associated phone numbers for on the spot/on-demand assistance if needed.
Let's start with getting from point to point. Samantha advised us to take direct flights from Philadelphia to Rome, a high speed train from Rome to Florence, and then a private car from Florence back to Rome for another direct flight back to Philadelphia. Private transfers were also provided from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to several tourist attractions that were too far to walk, and to and from the train station to the hotel. The drivers were prompt, courteous, and spoke English, which provided comforting experiences for my family.
Samantha picked 2 lovely boutique hotels that were clean and well stocked with bathroom and bedroom provisions. The best part of the hotels was their proximity to tourist attractions that we wanted to visit. The Rome hotel had adjoining rooms between my husband and my room and our children's room. The Florence hotel had neighboring rooms. Both hotels had full breakfast included as is standard for European hotels, and each hotel's breakfast spread was a large and tasty spread with something for everyone. I'm not sure how Italy does it, but they have the best espresso and cappuccino I've tasted! The hotel staff were pleasant and very attentive to our requests.
Private tour guides made this trip personal, tailored to our interests, well-paced, well-informed with history and culture, able to pivot immediately if desired (more or less time on something), and also reduced time in lines as they had the "fast-pass" entrance tickets to specific sites and events! Our private tour guides met us at our hotels and ensured we were well cared for the duration of our time with them by guiding us through locations and stopping as needed for additional experiences and rest. The same tour guide worked with us for the duration of our stay in each location. We had about 4 hours with our tour guide each day and then the rest of the day to explore on our own.
Upon our arrival in Rome, we got situated in our hotel, grabbed some lunch at a nearby pizza shop, and went back to the hotel to meet our tour guide, Luisa. Our first adventure on our day of arrival was a golf cart tour to see the highlights of Rome which included the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, multiple baroque churches and other fantastic sights along with sampling gelato and cannolis and coffees. We returned to the hotel 4 hours later, ready to rest and recharge for the next day ahead. We were greeted by our tour guide on the second morning to board a private car to the Colosseum and Roman Forum, and our guide was a wealth of knowledge about the history of each site. She was able to tell what we would want to spend more or less time on in the Forum. We decided to walk back from the Forum to the hotel to see additional sites on our own in the city. When Luisa left us for the day, she provided recommendations on where to have lunch. On our 3rd day we visited the Vatican, which was awe-inspiring and rich with collections of art and artifacts. Our tour included the Vatican museum, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica with a stop at the Vatican shop on the way out. Our tour guide had rich understanding of all things Vatican, and also provided a fantastic dinner spot and shopping area recommendations, as well as recommendations for our 4th day, a free day of exploration in Rome. On our last / 4th day in Rome, we were initially planning to visit Castel Santangelo, however, tickets were difficult to obtain for our preferred entry time. This ended up being a blessing actually as I think our children were fine with not walking through the museum and rather exploring the city more on our own. We walked around the castle which is situated on the Tiber River. We went to Trastevere for lunch and shopping, then to Campo di Fioro for additional shopping. We also revisited some of our favorite spots from the week: Spanish steps, Piazza Navona, gelato shops, coffee shops, St. Peter's Square, etc.
The next morning we took a private transfer from the hotel to the Rome train station for a high speed train in business class to Florence. Navigating in the train station was super easy, and the train ride was comfortable, quick (1.5 h) and exciting for my children to be in business class with refreshments. At the Florence train station we met our private transfer to the hotel, with a kind driver who provided a lot of great tips, and we arrived in plenty of time to explore before meeting up for our first event.
Our first event in Florence was a private cooking class with a chef from The Cooking Touch. Our chef guided us on a walking tour from the hotel to the market to pick up fresh vegetables and fruit for our dinner. We arrived at a private kitchen overlooking the Ponte Vecchio to cook a full dinner from scratch. Our family had a fantastic time sharing stories with our chef, making fettucine and sauces, artichoke bruschetta, gnudi, gelato and chocolate lava cakes, and creating flavors and memories for a lifetime. The chef provided the recipes so we can recreate our cooking experience at home. On our walk home we visited several Palazzos, one of which was full of activity including families on the carousel and an opera singer performing.
The next morning and our last day in Florence, we met with our tour guide Marco who was born and raised in Florence. As with our Rome guide, he was welcoming and very accommodating to ensure that we could pace our time to fit in our must haves for the day. On the agenda was a walking tour of Florence with stops at famous places like Dante's house, Leonardo DaVinci's residence, the lovely Duomo, Ponte Vecchio, with the major highlight being a trip to the Academia Gallery to visit Michelangelo's David and the special instrument gallery. We ended our tour with a pasta tasting in a local section of Florence and recommendations from Marco on where to visit in the afternoon. In the afternoon, we went to the Church of the Holy Cross to visit the tombs of many famous artisans and politicians, among which were Michelangelo and Galileo. The church grounds were beautiful. We also visited a jeweler who was highly recommended by Marco for 3 generations of artisanry in Florence. Here I purchased a very specific momento from Florence, and the jeweler showed us the pieces they created for the moving Conclave.
The next morning we boarded our private transfer for a 3 hour ride to the Rome airport. Our driver was courteous and got us to a local Florence bakery on our drive so that we could have breakfast en route to the airport. He then drove us across the Tuscan countryside to the airport and provided great discussion and cultural background on the drive.
Blessed with lovely weather, wonderfully hospitable and knowledgeable tour guides, chefs, and drivers. I am thankful for the careful plans created by Samantha and her close work with her global travel partners in Italy to make this a such a fantastic and memorable experience for my family, and as my husband said "one of the best vacations we've had." Samantha was on point when she said to not overbook ourselves, provide plenty of time to explore, and advised on what not to visit given my family's interests (e.g. we didn't go to the Uffizi museum in Florence as it would have been less fun for my children.) It was a treat to not have to worry or be burdened with planning our own specifics so we could truly enjoy our time together experiencing Italian culture. We will certainly work with Samantha Liss at Broadmoor Travel for future adventures! Thank you Samantha!”
Colleen S.
