TRAVELER REVIEWS

There's no better way to learn what a trip is like than from the firsthand experiences of your fellow travelers, and our Traveler Reviews are the real deal—unbiased and unedited—giving you an honest appraisal of the experiences that await you on this trip.

Italian Train Adventure: Culture & Cucinas

Our Adventure Leader, Sylwia Herzyk, was outstanding! I can't find enough words to describe how hard she worked to ensure that the needs of everyone in our group were met.
When I inadvertently left a small jewelry pouch in my room safe in our hotel in Stresa, she made sure that it was sent on ahead to our hotel in Rome. This was very important to me because the pouch contained a necklace given to me by my late husband almost 50 years ago. Sylvia went out of her way to ensure that our trip was an extra-special one, taking us to interesting restaurants where only the locals eat. On top of all that, she is a genuinely nice and caring person, one we all grew to love during our two weeks with her. Vantage surely picked a winner when they hired Sylwia Herzyk!

Italian Culinary Adventure From the Lakes District to the Amalfi Coast

This was a fantastic trip! Flew into Milan & from there, on to Stressa, a beautiful little town. Our journey took us so many places to see so much history and scenic places. The hotels were wonderful & located in great areas for walking & shopping. The meals provided were delicious & so much food!! Was a neat experience on the bullet train. Our guide, Vili Sorgp made the trip as he was fun, knowledgeable & helped whenever needed. This was my 3rd Vantage trip & as said, it was fantastic! Loved everything there!

Italian Culinary Adventure From the Lakes District to the Amalfi Coast

This was a fantastic trip! Flew into Milan & from there, on to Stressa, a beautiful little town. Our journey took us so many places to see so much history and scenic places. The hotels were wonderful & located in great areas for walking & shopping. The meals provided were delicious & so much food!! Was a neat experience on the bullet train. Our guide, Vili Sorgp made the trip as he was fun, knowledgeable & helped whenever needed. This was my 3rd Vantage trip & as said, it was fantastic! Loved everything there!

Italian Culinary Adventure From the Lakes District to the Amalfi Coast

I want to thank Vantage for paying all tips, so we didn't have to do that while on our tour. It made such a difference. I am sure, it was added in the price, but again, it made for such a smooth trip.

Italian Train Adventure: Magical Lakes, Eternal Cities & the Amalfi Coast

The following is a paragraph from our 2018 Christmas letter: 2018 was highlighted with a trip to Italy which we booked through a travel company called Vantage. It was amazing not to have to drive anywhere by ourselves and having the agency get us into highly congested areas fast and not have to wait in long lines. Our accommodations were top of the line and the food was over whelming. We got to see Venice when it wasn’t flooded, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi coast. We rode the bullet train four times and a couple times it went over 300 KPH. We had a gondola ride with a professional singer to serenade us which was fantastic. We found it more relaxing to have someone else plan a variety of sights to see and places to dine so much that we may do it again with Vantage, maybe in South America’s Patagonia or in the Canadian Rockies national parks, Banff and Jeffers .

Italian Train Adventure: Magical Lakes, Eternal Cities & the Amalfi Coast

My wife and I considered the Italian Train Adventure an excellent trip and excellent value. Most of all, we appreciated the top notch Adventure Leader Filippo Camerlengo. Filippo is absolutely the best Adventure Leader/Cruise Director we have ever had. He is courteous and professional, has a good sense of humor, and attends to every detail possible.

With regard to this trip, which is a new one for Vantage, a couple of suggestions:

1. The only local guide who was below par was Vicenzo, our local guide for our day trip to Capri. Vicenzo is an older gentleman who should retire. He spoke a lot (a LOT!) about everything, including uninteresting commentary about his wife, who he says is extremely overweight because she sits home and eats spaghetti every day. He said he is always glad for a call from his company to conduct a tour because it gives him an excuse to be away from his very fat wife. I know that Vicenzo is a local guide over whom Vantage has no control. So it seems that a solution to this situation is for Vantage to offer a visit to Capri as an Optional Tour (or even include it as part of the Journey), thereby making the visit to Capri up to Vantage standards. It might be necessary to extend the overall length of the Italian Train Adventure by a day to make this happen.

2. On our Journey, we stopped in Napoli, the city that invented and continues to be famous for PIZZA. However, our provided lunch that day was not pizza! It only makes sense to us travelers to have world famous Napolitan PIZZA for lunch when Vantage goes to Napoli at lunch time. Hope you can make this change!

3. Finally, all the accommodations were absolutely excellent (Stresa, Venice, Florence, Rome) EXCEPT in Sorrento. The hotel was OK (Hilton), but it was TOO FAR from the town center. It was a major undertaking to go into town from our hotel in Sorrento. We recommend you select a hotel in Sorrento that is in the town center.

Great trip! Great Adventure Leader!

Italian Train Adventure: Magical Lakes, Eternal Cities & the Amalfi Coast

Great tour of Italy. Some times busy with all of the hotel changes. The hotels were #1 in location and quality of facilities. Sorrento was a great way to end the trip. There was always time to see the points of interest.

Magic of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

Tomas was beyond excellent. He was both informative and funny. He made the trip enjoyable and entertaining in every way. The bus driver was also excellent. My one issue was with the size and level of our hotel rooms. They were, in my opinion average at best and could have been larger. I would have paid more for better accommodations.

Magic of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

This was an amazing trip. Our Program Director, Tomas, made each day an adventure and was the best. Zermatt was incredible and the Italian Lakes - WOW! I was not prepared for this to be such a 5-star trip. I highly recommend this trip but Tomas made it special.

Magic of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

The " magic" was certainly there for us on this tour. We thoroughly enjoyed everything about it. It was wonderful and appropriate to conclude with the visit to Orta which reminded of the Italy we knew 40+ years ago. Special kudos to our travel companions and driver who were so helpful and welcoming. Most of all, there are not enough superlatives to describe our Tour Director Tomas. It was he who made the "magic", and we shall be ever grateful.

Magic of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

We feel that the tour director can easily make or break the tour experience. In our case, our tour director Zoran Antonic was exceptional. He was personable and knowledgeable, and day after day we saw him go out of his way to make sure that the needs of everyone on the tour were met. His narrations were spiced with good humor and interesting anecdotes. We thoroughly enjoyed our first Vantagve experience.

We also thought that our bus driver, Oscar, did a great job of not only driving, but picking us up and dropping us off on time. It was great that we were able to leave our personal belongings on the bus when we went on a short tour and not have to worry about their safety.

Hotel food was very good to excellent (except for Zermatt). Accommodations were very good. One suggestion: let the tour director stay in the hotel with us in Venice so that he doesn't have to commute three hours a day.

The Splendors of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

The scenery was spectacular, the guide was excellent, the itinerary was perfect....and the price was right!! One must take advantage of all the "extra" tours which are offered as you will be sorry if you miss them...they are worth the extra money. The group was very cohesive and inclusive..many had been on at least ten other Vantage tours. We highly recommend Splendors of the Italian Alps.

The Splendors of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

We have now taken 6 trips with Vantage and this one has to be one of THE BEST we've done. The pacing was terrific and well done. Travel days were planned beautifully with tours as we moved and group dinners in the hotels upon arrival so we didn't have to scramble to unpack and run out to find our way around a new city. I am not a big city fan so this was right up my alley! We always felt safe and secure in the location of the hotels which were very nice. On a few trips, we've been cautioned not to go out of our hotels at night but that wasn't the case on this one. The lakes and small towns were absolutely gorgeous and we felt totally safe. I was apprehensive about theft but we were in lovely areas where just using common sense was enough. We went in mid-June which meant it was sort of toasty by the end of the tour but it also meant that Zermatt was PERFECT! Our Program Manager, Vilim, was OUTSTANDING! He added little touches to the trip that made it a very special experience for all of us. I highly recommend this one, even if you have been to Italy before. This is a beautiful trip and we hated to see it end.

The Splendors of the Italian Lakes & the Swiss Alps

The quality of the program manager made this trip worthwhile. It was a beautiful area made even better by the program manager's knowledge of the area and his willingness to make sure we got the very best from him.