Be careful to read the fine print of your tour booking and ask questions before paying. I booked a…read morepricey private tour but due to airline changes, I had to modify - there was no availability for a different time or day. Although a private tour, it was apparently not a private tour that fell into the 50% refund category. So, an unfortunate and bad experience not of my own making. The customer service was less than helpful, did not attempt to accommodate in any way.

We planed a one day tour for our first full day in Milan. We connected with Tiziana Lo Castro and…read morehad a fabulous 1/2 day tour. We started with the Monumental Cemetery near the AC Hotel Milano by Marriott where we were staying. There were an amazing number of statues from VIPs and their families buried there over the last 300 years. Tiziana had many stories about the various Italian families and individual who were buried there. We then flit about Milan walking through the fashion district (seeing many beautiful people) and ended up near the Duomo. She shared quite a bit about Italian history and the city. We enjoyed our time together.

I love this place. It's as pretty as it is in pictures…read more Short story: Woke up at 6am to catch the 7am train to Cinque Terre and guess what?! The train conductors decided to go on strike that day. People at the station said all regional trains are canceled this morning. I was about to cry because the #1 thing I most looked forward to was visiting Cinque Terre on this trip. Everything happens for a reason, right? Somehow at 9am, a train decided to take off going to Pisa, which connects to Cinque Terre. We got to Cinque Terre around 11:30am. Late start to the day but I finally got there. I visited and walked all 5 towns. Each one is special in it's own way. The five towns are called Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. Most people would say Manarola is the prettiest, not going to disagree with that but I actually love Corniglia the most. Maybe because you have to climb a few (a lot) steps to get there. It's small and charming once you get to the top and you can see Manarola. I had the best gelato there and I have eating a lot of gelato during my 2 week trip in Italy. Each town has their own special food too. A lot of street food which was awesome. When I do visit again, I would stay a night at least to do the full hike and enjoy all the towns a little more. I cant wait to get back.

Cinque Terre translated into English is roughy "5 Lands" but it is more like "5 Villages."…read more Daniele was a great tour guide! He is very knowledgeable and passionate about his village of Manarola... And the other 4 "Cinque Terre!" The villages are only accessible by local trains from La Spezia train station or Levanto. It takes about 15min to arrive to Manarola from la Spezia (but take an earlier train because Italian trains are often very late and crowded!) We did the morning tour, meeting Daniele close to the marina at 9:45am. There were 12 of us on the boat (all Americans so communication was easy). Daniele speaks almost perfect English so the tour went very smoothly. He drove us past the Cinque Terre giving a very nice history of how his forefathers turned a very steep/rock facade into a fertile farming area. Fighting off pirate attacks and later becoming fishermen. Cinque Terre has a very deep and amazing history that Daniele tells as you pass some of the most beautiful scenery! Daniele stopped the boat for two separate swims in the Mediterranean Sea! Daniele was very helpful as to where to swim and not to. How not to use your legs (avoiding kicking the rocks) and how to climb the rocks without slipping! We dove off rocks, took a refreshing shower in a natural waterfall and swam the clearest of blue water! I cannot say enough of Daniele and his 2.5hr tour! He provides beer, water, wine, sodas. He was considerate to the children on our tour who began feeling a little sea sick. Bring sun screen!!!! There is no room on his boat for your luggage; we left ours in a "Left Luggage" for $9 euro (3 bags) at La Spezia Train Station. Hotels are NOT easy to find in Cinque Terre so make reservations far in advance or stay outside in La Spezia.

Absolutely brilliant personal tour with Giacomo today. Easy to arrange and cover payment, great…read morecommunication before the tour and then we met up on time at the right spot. There was no communication boundary at all, Giacomo was friendly and personable. Giacomo and I spent three packed hours together touring the best spots in Milan including the Sforza Castle, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the Duomo and more. Along the way, interesting sights were pointed out that I would otherwise have completely missed. We did not stop for lunch or snacks, but the best restaurants and little grocery spots were pointed out including the gelato at Ciacco and the cheese at Peck. I had an absolutely fantastic time and rate this as five stars. [Review 10687 overall, 455 of 2019.]

My husband and I had only 2 days in Milan en-route to Cyprus and boy did we make the most of our…read moretrip! Thanks to Giacomo and his wonderful tour of the city, we felt so much more satisfied with the little time we had in Italy and enjoyed it so much more. When he first told me the WALKING tour was 3 hours, I thought, wow, is that nearly enough time to see the city on foot and thankfully it was. Just enough to see the castle, the famous Brera district, the City Center, and lastly the Duomo cathedral. Giacomo kept us highly entertained with his skillful knowledge of the city, it's rich history, it's current status and even tips on where and what to eat to get the FULL cultural experience of Milan. We were jet lagged and probably not the best guests, but he was a great communicator.... kind, friendly, great English, good listener. He even asked us which metrics we prefer for him to use! If you want to have a very PERSONAL tour experience and leave a city knowing so much more than a book or article can offer, I'd highly recommend Giacomo's Milan Tours company. We kept walking by the larger tour groups with their headphones and flags and thought, wow, why pay the same amount for such a lesser experience?!?!? I will be using Giacomo and/or his colleages again. Perhaps when we come back home through Milan to go to Lake Como.

The most amazing boat tour in the CT. This is a 4 hour ride where you get to see the entire coast…read moreand all 5 villages from the water. Unlimited prosecco, apps, and food. Our guide was really sweet and funny and they provide snorkel masks and swimming noodles. We got to stop to swim twice which was a lot of fun. This was worth the bit of extra money as we had a long, wonderful day on the water. Our boat also only had 5 people on it (me and my boyfriend and 3 older people) so we basically had the boat to ourselves and could sit wherever we liked.

Definitely the best tour of our vacation. Angelo is the best…read more My husband had read about Angelo's Boat Tours prior to leaving on vacation, but he was worried they would not be up and running because we were there early in the season. During our trip my husband wrote to Angelo, and imagine our pleasure when we found out the sea was going to be calm enough to go out on the boat. Angelo is a dear as is his wife Paula. We met the boat at the dock at Monterosso and were quickly greeted and helped onto the boat. Angelo took us on a leisurely evening trip to show us all the towns, while giving us an explanation of the local flavor of each town. Angelo is very charming and provided us with proseco to drink while on the boat. We then stopped at a marvelous restaurant with Angelo, Il Porticciolo in Manarola before heading to view the last town of Riomaggiore. A great time was had by all. Paula had made us dinner reservations in Vernazza, which was definitely the best dinner of the trip. Make sure when you are going to Cinqueterre that you plan to spend time on Angelo's boat. You will be delighted, as we were.

Davide (in English pronounced Davi-day) is an amazing tour guide! We went to a parmagiana reggiano…read morefacilty where Davide gave us a private tour and knew so much about the cheese... and knew all the people that worked there. We then had a tasting. We road back to the city to an amazing deli where we had all kinds of cured meats. We ordered (apart from the fee) wines and really had an amazing time talking to Davide. He's an amazing host and a great guy!!!!

Recommend!! We booked our tour just a few days before arriving to Parma and were able to customize…read moreit to our budget, interests, and schedule. We communicated with Davide via email then later FB messenger, and he was very flexible, accommodating, and communicative throughout the process. On the day of, it was supposed to rain but fortunately for us, it didn't! We met with Davide at the Cicleteria right next to the Parma station. Davide got us all set up with bikes and we were on our way! He was great at communicating where we were going and gave turn by turn signals to make sure we didn't get lost. He took us slightly outside the city to our first stop, a parmiagiano-reggiano factory. He had his own equipment so you know he's a regular and knows his stuff! Meanwhile, we got geared up in a protective smock and got to learn about every step of making parmigiano-reggiano cheese (and what goes into make the real stuff)! It was entertaining and a wonderful learning experience! We topped off the experience by getting to try differently aged parmigiano-reggiano cheese and became experts in distinguishing the different flavor profiles ourselves! We also had the chance to buy parmesano reggiano cheese from the cheese factory at a cheaper price. They had other food souvenirs as well. We wanted to try real and local balsamic vinegar, but since the bike ride to a balsamic factory would have taken us too long for our half day tour, Davide scheduled a tasting at Antica Salumeria Alimentaria Rastelli. We got to have a balsamic vinegar tasting, as well as taste some amazing burrata, pickled onions, olives, and Parma ham (prosciutto di Parma). So delicious! I would highly recommend Bike Food Stories and having Davide be your Parma guide! Grazie mille, Davide!!

Using Viator, I reserved the "Skip the Line: Essential Milan Tour Including Da Vinci's 'The Last…read moreSupper'" tour on February 13, 2024 for our trip coming up in May of 2024. I paid the deposit and received a Confirmation number and a Book Reference number. 10 days before my trip, I received an email informing me that my tour was cancelled. No reason was given. I contacted Viator and they could not give me a reason and could not find any tickets - everything was sold out through June. I contacted Veditalia directly and the responses from the General Manager were useless. This is the THRID time that VIATOR has cancelled our Last Supper tour in Milan, Italy over the years. THREE TIMES!!! We booked months in advance to make sure we had the tickets taken care of and now we have nothing. We called and Viator could not do anything.

Serena took us on the Best of Milano Tour (in English) on Oct 31/19. She is a proud Milanese with…read morea deep knowledge of the city and Italy. English is excellent and our three hour tour was worth every penny. I strongly recommend this tour as a 'first stop' in Milan, and then use it to help plan your next visits!

We took a bus tour in Milan two days ago. I changed seats twice to find one where the audio track…read moreworked. I finally got a clear one. Probably 70% of the tour was devoted to scratchy music. When we did get audio guidance, it was out of sync with the tour, so we had difficulty figuring out where we were and what we were seeing. Unfortunately, there was no person handling the tour who could explain what we were seeing as we approached, and answer questions. As I expressed to my partner, I'd have gotten more joy had I simply lit a 50 euro note on fire and watched it burn.

What a complete waste of money. Today I took a ride with them on one bus that had their logo across…read morethe window making it impossible to see the city. Their audio track was not set correctly to the point it would say things like "on the left at #41" and I would look and we were at #49 and going up. So you're telling me about something we already passed. I missed it. Thanks. Switched to another bus to see a different part of the city and get a better seat to discover 1) same problem with the audio we were 2-4 min past things when the audio told us about them. 2) the bus went off the route and the guide wasn't sure why so we missed some sights. Then 3) the air conditioning didn't work. It was 34C (93F) and we were in traffic so it was a sweat box. When I complained I was told "well this bus has a problem with its system" stop talking. Do not put us on a bus in this heat that you know doesn't have working AC. Still I was told "it's not our fault it's the bus" I'm sorry whose bus is it? Oh yes yours. Am I blaming you the tour guide? No. Am I saying your company should know better and do better? Yes. Do not use this company. Absolutely a waste of money. I got out and paid for a taxi to somewhere else in the city to see sights.

Can't say enough positive things about Easy Touring and its owner operator Wolfgang. We met…read moreWolfgang by chance as he was our transfer arranged by a restaurant in 2013. Since then we have traveled with him for custom tours to Chianti, Bolgheri, montecarlo, and Montalcino as well as for many train station and airport transfers. He's the best. Professional, knowledgable, kind and very good at helping you coordinate your tour or transfer needs. A valuable resource for your trip in tuscany! He even planned transportation for our wedding, getting 75 guests to a hillside church outside of Lucca!

From the owner: I am a private-hire in Tuscany and can take you from your hotel to the airport for example but also…read morespend the day on a tour of your choice. I am fluent in English, German and Italian and like culture, history, good food and wines!

Such an amazing experience! Leonardo was fabulous. He made our trip. He led us around Golfo del…read morePoeti and was so helpful and friendly! Cannot say enough good things!

OUTSTANDING! Our group of 8 had a fantastic time riding a…read morehop hop boat along the coast to Cinque Terre. Capt. Marta was a wonderful mix of fun and knowledge. The stop to swim in the perfect blue water was a joy. We were a bit nervous that we would be on a speed boat the whole time, but it was great and allowed us to cover so much territory. Book your trip now.

I was in Italy a few weeks ago with a couple of girlfriends and when we arrived at our hostel in…read moreMilan we came across the Ecco Adventures poster and immediately called. Andre answered and was extremely accommodating, he came to pick us up the next morning. We had no idea that we were in for the most amazing experience. He took us on a hike and showed us Lake Como. We went kayaking in Lake Como and he took us on a road trip of northern Italy. We saw and did things we could have never imagined doing if it weren't for Andre. He also taught us lots of Italian on the way. If you are ever in Italy, Ecco Adventures is the way to go!! Thank you Andre for the memories that will last a lifetime!

From the owner: We believe in engaging local communities, getting our hands dirty, and listening intently. Join us…read moreon a trip and you'll see how we integrate real experiences, language, landscape, culinary, and local traditions into a truly unique travel experience. We work hard to craft the type of itineraries we ourselves would want to be a part of.