Bel Viaggio

If your schedule allows, consider a visit to the Trevi Fountain, one of Rome's most celebrated sights, which was the terminus of the Aqua Virgo aqueduct. Throw a coin over your right shoulder and into the spray to ensure your return to this wonderful city!

A full-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Rome, will accompany your group.

Walk through the best known monuments of Ancient Rome, the Colosseo and the Foro Romano. Once the heart of a vast empire, the Forum was filled with extravagant buildings and crowded with people from all over the known world.

Discover outstanding masterpieces collected for the Vatican Museums since the early 1500s. See exceptional statues from antiquity, such as Laocoön and His Son and the Apollo Belvedere, as well as stunning Renaissance paintings, notably the The School of Athens fresco in the Raphael Rooms.

Walk through the plaza built on the site of Domitian's Stadium. Lined with grand buildings and trendy cafes, this oblong square is adorned with statues and fountains, notably Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers.

Your coach takes you north to Assisi, where flowers overflow the window boxes that adorn the pink stone buildings typical of the town.

A half-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Assisi, will accompany your group.

Step into the basilica built on the Hill of Paradise. It consists of two superimposed churches resting on a series of arches: the Lower Basilica, built over the crypt which contains the tomb of St. Francis, and the Upper Basilica, decorated with frescoes by 13th-century masters Giotto and Cimabue.

Travel up and over the rolling hills of Tuscany, to Firenze, the "Jewel of the Renaissance."

View a wealth of artwork from the 15th and 16th centuries at the Galleria dell'Accademia, including the best known of all Florentine treasures, Michelangelo's monumental David.

In the nave of the Cattedrale Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as the Duomo, visitors marvel at a cathedral begun in 1296 and consecrated in 1436 that remains one of the largest in Christendom. It houses precious masterpieces, notably Domenico di Michelino's 1320 painting titled Dante holding the Divine Comedy.

Next on your program: the church that's the final resting place of luminaries such as Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo. Santa Croce is also famous for its art treasures, notably the Cappella dei Pazzi, a chapel attributed to Brunelleschi that's hailed as a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture.

Watch a craftsman demonstrate steps used in the manufacture of the world-renowned Florentine leather goods.

On Piazza Bra, the vast square where the Arena di Verona is located, you will see this splendid Roman amphitheater, which dates back to the 1st century AD. It's one of the largest in the Roman world with its 44 tiers of seats.

Today's journey takes you past Lake Lugano, a gem of the Italian lake district.

This excursion takes you to the top of the world with the ascent to the summit of Mt. Pilatus, nearly 7,000 feet high. Up one side of this towering peak by cable car; down the other side, through mists and tinkling cowbells, by a narrow-gauge cog railway train (the steepest in the world for this form of traction).

Depart Lucerne for Zurich.