Going to Italy in October 2025

In August 2025, we booked a trip to Italy with Globus. The tour was the Italian Tapestry, which took us from Venice down through Florence, Siena, Rome, and ended in Sorrento. It was a whirlwind 9 day trip, where we got to see a lot and truly did enjoy a tapestry of experiences, including:

• riding in a gondola through the canals of Venice

• tasting balsamic vinegar in Modena

• seeing the David and other works of Michaelangelo in Florence

• a tour of the Jewish ghetto in Rome, where we drove past the Colloseum

• roaming the isle of Capri after taking a funicular to the high point of the island

  
  

Along our trip, we opted for the additional excursions at each stop. These usually consisted of dinner plans, which simplified our evenings in Florence and Siena. We went to Monterrigioni for one dinner at a Tuscan farmhouse. Our final night in Sorrento, we had a buffet style dinner at the hotel.

Venice

Our trip began with a flight from Vancouver into Zurich and then Zurich into Venice. Once arriving at the airport, we had set up transport to our hotel with our travel agent. We got a ride to a bus stop that was a 5 minute walk from Carlton on the Grand Canal, our hotel.

We checked in at around 2pm on October 2nd, and then briefly changed before starting to look for a restaurant for that evening. We walked down the canal and across a bridge and found a lovely spot for our first dinner in the city. The tour was set to start on October 4th, so we had 2 full days at our leisure in Venice.

What I found remarkable about Venice was how inaccessible the city is. You really have to be adept at walking to get around the city, which is a maze of canals and bridges and streets. It's otherworldly. The buildings are historic and you can feel this sense of impermanence to the surroundings. The city is sinking and it feels like it's only a matter of time when it could all be gone.

On October 3rd, we just strolled the backalleys around our hotel and found a place to grab pizza and gelato. The weather was cooler, but around 16 degrees Celsius, so perfect fall sweater weather. We watched mask-makers adorn ceramic masks at a little shop near our hotel. Then we went for prosecco at a quaint little wine bar outside of an old church. Fighting jetlag, our goal was just to stay up so we could see as much of Venice before the tour started. We concluded our day by booking a tour from the hotel to Murano and Burano for the subsequent morning.

October 4th started frantic as we almost slept in and missed our boat tour to Murano and Burano. This started at around 9am, where we ended up meeting two sisters who were also on our Globus tour. It was cool to see a glass blowing demonstration in Murano. In Burano, we missed our boat so ended up taking public transport to get back to the hotel in time for our tour group to meet that evening for a welcome dinner.

October 5th started out as a rainy, cold day. As the beginning of the Globus tour, we went to St. Marks Basillica and all the historic sites like the Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. That afternoon, the skies cleared and there was sunshine, just in time for us to go on a gondola ride . The rest of the evening was free time and we happened upon dinner plans that were a recommendation from fellow travelers on our tour.

Florence

The buses on a Globus tour leave early, around 8am. On October 6th we set off for Florence. The day was relaxed and only involved one stop in Modena to see how balsamic vinegar is made. That evening, we had opted for dinner plan with Globus, the Florentine dinner. It was a beautiful evening starting at the Piazelle Michaelangelo overlooking the city, we drove down a backalley way landing at our restaurant for a 2 hour meal.

October 7th, we started very early having to get our bags out for 5:30 am. By 8am, we were in the heart of Florence at a museum, looking at Michaelangelo's David.

Disappointed that our Florentine dinner didn't include Bisteka al Florentine, we went for lunch at a place where they specialized in the dish. Our steak was 1.2 kg, we ordered a side salad and potatoes to go with it. Cooked to perfection, this steak was a truly luxurious experience. Well worth the 100 Euros or so that it cost.

Siena

=

Siena was ultimately an unremarkable stop on our journey. We toured more historical landmarks and learned all together too much about St. Catherine. That night, we ended up having dinner after visiting Monteriggioni at a Tuscan farmhouse as part of an optional itinerary on the tour. After staying the night in Siena, we began our next bus trip to Rome.

Stopping in Pienza was the thing that was most memorable about this leg of the tour. It was a small cobblestoned village with medieval architecture. A quaint little city, where we shared a bottle of prosecco along the city walls.

Rome

By the time we had arrived in Rome on October 8th, we were both starting to feel a little under the weather from the go-go-go nature of the bus tour. We wandered the streets of Rome that evening looking for THC gummies, and got hoodwinked into paying 50 euros for some CBD gummies. We settled upon a restaurant where we got a basket of fried appetizers and carbonara.

The next day, Globus' tour of Rome focused on the Jewish Ghetto, where we toured the ruins around the area and visited another church, which had an impressive view of the city from the rooftop. The day was hot. The schedule felt too packed so we skipped seeing St. Peter's Basillica.

It was a relief to have two nights at the same hotel in Rome. It allowed us some recouperation time before our final leg of the journey.

Sorrento

We set off for another 2 night stay in Sorrento. The first day, October 10th, we stopped in Pompeii. It was very interesting to tour the ruins of this ancient city, destroyed by a volcano around 2000 years ago. The city has been excavated and the tour was informative about the way of life of the people who lived there.

Checking into our hotel in Sorrento was a relief. We finally had a large room with an adequate shower. That evening, we set off on an excursion to see Positano after a winding drive along the Amalfi coast.

October 11th was the last full day of our whirlwind tour. We went to Capri that morning. Capri was a relaxed part of our tri%p, where we got to take a funicular to the top of the isle and then walk down to the beach. We spent time at the beach before having a great lunch at a pizzeria on the beach.

Benefits of Touring with Globus

Globus packed so much into our 9 days in Italy. We really saw a lot and had opportunities to shop for souvenirs as well as enjoy a drink or snack along the way.

The transport was smooth and we made it from city to city without any headaches. I suppose less free time was the only thing we experienced with delays, but we really didn't notice this.

Globus provided us a recommended itinerary, which resulted in us being able to experience Italy without having to do much research. We definitely think of this tour as an introduction to Italy, as it narrowed our goals should we ever be able to return.

Hotels were known and established before our trip, which does provide an opportunity for extra research, and we could have prepared for free evenings by ourselves.

The tour group was only about 40 people, so the group was small enough that we were able to get to know one another a little. Overall, our group was friendly. Average age of the people on the tour was probably around 50.

Challenges touring with Globus

A bus tour like this requires very early mornings. It is not suitable if you're looking for a relaxing vacation. I suppose there are a lot of logistics to tackle with timing and traffic and leaving early is the only option they can take to fit in everything that they provide.

Without the optional dinner excursions, it would have been difficult to make dinner plans without extensive research. Being in the cities was overwhelming and the hotel locations weren't exactly city center. Each city had it's own character and without Dean's navigation skills, I would have been lost.

Hotels were sometimes small with extremely small showers in Venice and in Rome. We never asked for upgrades, but likely should have in several cities.

Food wasn't the culinary delight that we expected. There were overall just two 10/10 meals. Our Bisteka al Florentine in Florence and our pizza at the beach in Capri.

The final challenge when deciding to travel with a company like Globus is that some of the itinerary can be less desirable, like our experience in Siena, which we would have skipped for more time in Florence or in Sorrento.

Next Time We Go to Italy

Should we be lucky enough to ever visit Italy again, we will opt for a relaxing vacation in Amalfi. Sorrento was by far our favorite stop on the trip; the energy there felt so Mediterranean and special. The Amalfi coast was a beautiful, winding drive and looking at a map, Amalfi is in the middle of many cities we could take daytrips to.