We landed in Rome and were picked up by a private van. We were dropped off at our hotel, and from there, we walked everywhere to tour the city, except when we did our night tour of Rome. We took a taxi to the Vatican, which our hotel helped to arrange, and we got a taxi to come back, which we were able to find ourselves very easily. We then left for Florence, where we picked up our rental car and drove straight through to Siena. Once we arrived in Siena, and got situated, we walked in to the city center everyday. It was rich full of history and culture. We loved the city center tremendously. We also drove to Montalcino and toured a vineyard, which was lovely, and we found a delicious restaurant and lots of fun things to do there. After five nights there, we drove back to Florence and returned the rental car. We stayed there one night and toured the city. We headed to Venice the next day and stayed for three days there, where we explored and had a magical time.
Most of our tour guides were INCREDIBLE and made the locations really come to life. Having a travel agency was the BEST! Our travel agent was so handy and incredibly resourceful. I will ALWAYS do our vacations this way. The itinerary was fantastic!
The accommodations in Siena were very uncomfortable. The bed and couches were very old and not supportive at all. Dealing with jet lag, it was really important that we slept well. However, this wasn't possible for the five nights at that particular villa. Also, the daughter of the villa owner was pretty sassy, and we were not given proper instruction for accessing this villa (getting into the gate).