Any reviews Tuscany, Cinque Terre and Portofino tour?
I've been just about everywhere Tauck travels in Italy, but I've not been to Genoa or Portofino and I would love to return to the Cinque Terre. I don't really see any recent reviews of this trip. Any feedback?
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This tour is a fairly new variation on the Tuscany & Cinque Terre tour. You don't see the Carrara quarries but do see Portofino instead. We did the Tuscany & Cinque Terre trip a number of years ago and loved it. While we had been to Florence and the Cinque Terre before, but they always delight. That tour was second only to Classic Italy as our favorite Italy tour. If you're looking to do a longer trip, we paired Tuscany & Cinque Terre with the Rome, Capri and Amalfi tour. While it too had places we'd been before, it was also a delight.
Thank you Ken. That is really helpful to know. The current version of the trip is rated as 4/4 activity and pace, so I was really hoping that someone who has taken the trip this year could address that. Bike ride in Lucca sounds delightful but as I've mentioned before, I'm not the greatest hiker. I had been hoping to pair this trip with Sicily next year but the flight connections to Florence are not great, surprisingly. Will probably save this tour for another time and either add on some independent travel or maybe the Switzerland trip.
I totally agree that the Classic Italy trip is hard to beat, but it is also nice to know that you can't go wrong with the other Italy trips.
The bike ride in Lucca is really easy. A couple of miles atop the city wall. Level ride on the wall. Most people walked their bike up the ramp to get to the top of the wall.
Hey Ken from Vegas, can you provide any details about the Carrara marble tour? Is it in a Jeep or ATV side-by-side? Are you in the vehicle the whole time (any walking/hiking)? Heading on that tour in a couple of weeks. Thanks in advance
DRL please report back after your trip. Have a wonderful time!
Regarding the Carrara marble tour: We were there in 2015, so things may have changed. We transferred to some vintage Land Rover Defenders driven by local guides for the tour (hopefully, these have been replaced by now). It wasn't a working day, although there were plenty of dump trucks hauling marble chips down the mountain. We stopped at one or two places where you could get out and walk on the marble and see some of the equipment. We also drove through one of the mine tunnels into the mountain. Afterwards, we went to the nearby town of Colonnata for dinner. Colonnata is famous for lardo, cured pig fat that has been seasoned with herbs and aged in marble vats. Served on toast, it's better than it sounds, though decidedly not heart healthy. Colonnata is the also home to many of the miners and marble is everywhere - on the houses in the form of sills and stoops and even paving a parking area.
We just got back from the Tuscany and Cinque Terre tour last week. The Carrara tour used Land Rovers to travel up and down the quarry, stopping at several spots to see the workings of the quarry. It was not nearly as dangerous as the TD said it would be. Interesting and informative.
The 4/4 activity and pace of this trip was probably mostly due to the hike in Cinque Terre. It was billed as very difficult and only seasoned hikers were encouraged to take it. As it turns out the hike was cancelled due to heavy rains the day of the hike and we toured the paved and level walkways around Monterosso. The group then traveled by train to Vernazza for a not included lunch. We seemed to have more meals on our own during this tour and can only speculate on the reason for that. We then took the public ferry back to La Sepia where we rejoined the bus. The ferry was quite a disappointment in that it was not a private ship like we used on the Classic Italy tour. It was truly the public ferry and it was raining. The ship was extremely overcrowded with many people having to stand.