The photo above was taken at the small hill town of Orte. Orte was a surprise lunch stop on the bus ride from Florence to Rome. Our fellow travelers come from nine states and have different interests and occupations back home, but we all share an interest in traveling and the history, art, food and wine, and culture of Italy. With all of that in common, we quickly became friends.

We have been on other Rick Steves' tours and it has sometimes taken a day or two to get acquainted with our companions, but this group gelled from the very beginning. Everyone was a joy and a delight to be around. From the youngest to the oldest, we had fun together and spent a lot of time with each other during our free time. We even organized our own wine and snack event for our next to last night in Rome (with a little of Karin and Susanna’s help). The tour went by much too fast, and parting was very sad.

The Rick Steves' tours are such a good fit with our travel objectives that we have always had a wonderful time with the guides and fellow travelers on our tours. However, when you have guides as special as Karin Kibby and Susanna Perrucchini, the enjoyment factor gets raised to another level. Add the wonderful group of people we were fortunate enough to travel with on this trip and the experience is about as good as it can get.

Karin and Susanna are very caring and approachable guides. They would go out of their way to make sure everyone was having a wonderful time. We were fortunate enough to spend some time with them - sharing gelato, meals, or evening wine. My special memory of them involved their preparations for an evening wine tasting at Hotel Accademia, our Florence hotel. We had just had lunch with them and David, and we were exploring Florence (in search of Mona Lisa’s burial site) when we heard bottles rattling and laughter. Since we were on a back street behind the Central Market, my first urge was to quickly detour to another street. Then I noticed who was making all of the racket - Karin and Susanna. They were pushing, pulling and dragging a shopping cart full of wine and goodies for the wine tasting. They looked rather comical and out-of-place going through the narrow back streets with a shopping cart on the uneven cobblestones. Karin and Susanna really complemented each other and worked well together. I think our group had such a good time, in part, because they were having fun as well.

The local guides that we had in Venice, Florence and Rome were very knowledgeable and added something special to our tour experience. Our two favorites were Francesca Caruso (Rome) and Simone Anichine (Florence). Francesca guided us though the Ancient Roman sites - Forum, Coliseum and the Pantheon. She really made the history come alive and made it easy to understand why and what had happened during the Ancient era of Rome.

Simone led two tours in Florence - Oltrarno district and Uffizi Gallery. His command of Florentine art and history is exceptional, and he introduced us to several sights we would never have known about without him. During the tour of the Oltrarno district an elderly, local woman walked though our group and up to Simone and wanted to know what we were looking at and what he was saying about it. She listened to what Simone had to say, nodded her approval and continued her walk down the narrow street. It felt like we had her blessing to be there.