Renaissance Italy Tours

I just couldn't figure out how to do it. I am hoping that my friends will see this and help me with my dream to share with people my love of Italy. I want to offer unusual tours and teach Italian as I go. I love to visit places where there is not a lot of English spoken (it really helps me with my Italian). I like to travel at times of the year when it is cheaper to stay in the hotels, and there i

s availability. I love to travel when there are not as many English speaking tourists around. Favorite time: end of March - beginning of April, it is still cheap enough and it is not crowded and you can get reservations on the trains. Can't travel at Easter at all - it is expensive and it is their biggest holiday. Although amazing to see some of the Easter celebrations they do, it is packed everywhere there is an event happening. Be prepared to walk - a lot. This is no kidding here. I move, that is how I see and do so much. You can sit out parts of some adventures, but it won't be fair to people who want to move, so prepare yourself - walk a lot at least 2 to 3 months before you go. And study Italian - it is so easy to get a CD program off Amazon for less than $10 and it will benefit you greatly. You will have to shop sometime without me so you need to know all the courtesies, numbers and other phrases. All of which I will go into greater detail. I've been checking prices and at this time airfares are running around $800 - I want to go for 2 weeks which means paying for hotels for 12 to 14 days which can run anywhere from 25 to 35 euro per person most of the time double occupancy which means $45 to $55 a nite depending on the exchange at the time. So hotels/hostels/pensiones can cost as much as airfare. So we're up to around $1600 so far. Food can cost more if you eat out every meal. Some places include breakfast, which is nice (of course they cost a little more - so it all comes out in the wash). Food costs approximately 5 to 10 euro for breakfast, same for lunch (unless we all share picnics - which we will!!!) and then approximately 14 to 20 euro for dinner (not including spirits or desserts) I am a vegetarian, so my meals are always cheaper and weirdly enough, i don't drink (I drink coffee though and I always drink it when I am there - ALWAYS - it is soooooooooooo good). Okay so that is about 40 euro a day for food another $55 or so for food a day so that is another around $800 for food, etc. So now we are up to around $2,400. Then there are museums, you might spend around 75 euro at the most and then the train costs. We can save on that if we don't take Eurostar and high speed trains (last time I bought a Eurail pass and saved over a $100 on trains. So this brings a grand total - trains run up to $350 depending on how much we move around - we are around $3000 without some spending money, which I recommend around 500 euro - you can do a lot less, they just have some wonderful things there that you don't see any where else. The fee I am asking for myself is $500 - which gives you a tour guide for 10 days (a few days I need for me and gives you some time to do some things on your own - I will make all the reservations at the hotels, trains, etc. Will provide at least one picnic for everyone on one of our hikes and will make sure you get from place to place safely and "hopefully" (I say this this way because - you never know what can happen) to each hotel and site that we plan to go see, I will take you to some really great restaurants and on some walks that "are not on the regular tour." I know it is fairly pricey in some ways. but I just checked out another site for a 7 day tour, includes all your food, museums, hotels, trains, buses, etc. $4,413 - for a 7-day tour. Does not include airfare and it is only for 7 days. By comparison - actually there is no comparison - theirs with airfare, 14 days, no spending money is $10,000, mine with spending money is $4,000. So that is pretty cool, you just saved $6,000. You don't often do that. DETAILS - DETAILS - Yes there always are. Of course you can put some purchases, food, and airfare (YOU BOOK YOURSELF) on Credit Card. We will have to figure out how to pay for hotels for so many people with our Credit Cards - mine won't hold it all. ONLY 8 People at the most. It is a lot to shepherd this many people and all their things and their details. So space is very limited.