“Hello Daniella,
I apologize that it has taken so long for me to get back to you, but life moves much more quickly for us in the states than it did in Italy. I do want to sincerely thank you for all of the hard work you put into planning our trip. I have attached the glowing recommendation/ review I have written for your company. I have also attached some of our favorite family photos from our Italy trip that you can similarly go through and select some to use as you desire.
As you can tell from the review, you really exceeded our expectations in all ways, as did nearly everything that we experienced in Italy. Here below is a list for you in the event that it helps make your work easier or your recommendations better:
Accommodations:
Hotel Giorgione: Excellent
Hotel Lucchesi: Excellent
Hotel 47: Excellent
Hotel Poseidon: There was much to love here, but the room could definitely use a thorough cleaning and a renovation–at least a fresh coat of paint. We would stay in all of the other hotels again if we returned, but we’d probably try to find a different place in Positano.
Restaurants:
Osteria Enoteca San Marco: Excellent
Osteria Enoteca Ai Artisti: Amazing one of our favorite restaurants from the trip.
Trattoria Alla Rivetta: Awful. It was the worst meal of our trip. Roberta told us it wasn’t great; I wish we would have listened.
Cafe Coquinarius: Excellent dining experience.
Trattoria 4 Leoni: Excellent
Grazie e Graziella: It was good. The menu was a little limited, but it was still good.
Cantina e Cucina So this is the same exact menu as Grazie e Graziella (though we didn’t know that when we walked in) and is owned by the same people, but we liked this one better.
Pupetto: Very good and right on the beach.
Lo Smeraldo: Loved this place in Capri because our daughter could enjoy the private swimming area while we ordered and ate.
La Tagliatta: This was our favorite restaurant of the entire trip.
Da Costantino: It was good, not as great as La Tagliata, but good.
Tour Guides:
Venice Tour Guide Roberta: Excellent. She really kept us entertained and on schedule. She also took pictures and was just all around wonderful
Florence Driver to Winery Giancarlo: I included Giancarlo with the guides because he was fantastic. He taught us all about the area, took our picture, made several stops just to show us the sites, educated us about wine. He was just so much more than a driver.
Pisa Guide Laura: She was very nice and knowledgeable, but she didn’t manage the time well. We spent a long time at certain places and a short time at others and she didn’t have the tickets ahead of time, so we sort of had to rush through the cathedral and then we almost missed our train.
Ancient Rome Guide Claudio: He was very knowledgeable, helped us get through lines really quickly, and even took us to a great spot for lunch after the tour. We really enjoyed his company.
Pompeii Guide: I cannot remember our guide’s name, but she was wonderful, and I’m glad we did the tour–it ended up being our daughter’s favorite part of the whole trip.
Sites/ Experiences:
Peggy Guggenheim Collection: This is the perfect museum for families. It’s small enough that you can see everything in a short time frame and the sculptural courtyard is an excellent place for ids to run around and interact with the art.
Florence Bike Tour: Loved this! Just make sure people know how to ride a bike before signing up. We had a couple that had no idea how to ride bikes and they ended up hitting a taxi and an ambulance and slowing the group down. Still it was such fun. If we come back we would also do the wine biking tour through them.
Castello Monterinaldi: The tour is quite short. We would have liked to have seen a bit of the vineyards, but overall we loved the experience. The lunch was amazing, as was the service.
Chianti Sculptural Park: This was an amazing place to let our little one unwind. You stroll through the park and have the chance to touch or play with the art. I highly recommend visiting to travelers with children.
Accademia: It was good, just what I expected. A little confusing to enter, but otherwise a good experience.
Trastevere Neighborhood Food Tour: An excellent experience.
Borghese Park: This is a really wonderful place for families. We went there, rented an electric bike for four and went around the park, letting our daughter play at the playground, pet the horses, visit the lagoon, etc. It was really a lovely afternoon.
Rome Cooking Day: This was one of our favorite experiences from the trip. The only problem was they didn’t seem to know we had a child with us, they didn’t have anything for her to do, and at first they didn’t serve her food. Fabio himself was great with her though. He even let her go in his private car.
The Vatican: Thank goodness we arrived early. It was so confusing to try to find the right address. The taxi dropped us off in front of the cathedral where there was a long line, so we wandered around that line, asked a guard where to go, he sent us to the other side of the building where there was another long line. Finally a tour guide directed us to the proper entrance. After that the tour was great.
Amalfi Coast and Capri: We enjoyed both boat tours very much. It was the perfect way to spend time in The Amafli Coast. There was a bit of an issue with one of our tours–a bad storm began and instead of getting up back to Positano, the captain of our boat went to help a friend and jumped off our boat and onto a friend’s boat, leaving us floating by ourselves for half an hour. Other than that, both trips were excellent.
Emerald Grotto: It was only 5E and for that it was totally worth it. The Blue Grotto on the other hand is an overpriced tourist trap that is difficult to enjoy. ”
Cassandra Parente (Mansfield, OH) – JUNE 2015
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy
Amalfi, Italy
