Dear Alessia,
The trip was fantastic! I love the Italian people! I love the language! I love the food!
I will critique the trip for you:
 
We were thrilled to get the private pick-up and transportation in Venice. It is a little daunting when you first get there, so it was great to have someone show us the way. The hotel was tiny, but charming! Loved the breakfast! It was in a great location. Fell in love with Venice. Our private guide the next day was fantastic! We learned so much! The lagoon island tour was nice and really beautiful. It also was nice to have the private pick-up to go back to the airport. He was very nice.
 
The train ride was great. We stopped in Bologna for a few hours, but really didn’t know what to do. Fortunately someone told us about a tour bus that travels through the city. We stayed on it for a couple hours and saw many sights. It also is a beautiful city. (I wish I had looked up some info on Bologna before our trip so I would have known more about it.)
 
I loved Florence and could have spent more time there! It is so beautiful! The hotel in Florence was great and a great location. All the tours were fantastic and we had wonderful, informative guides. The artwork, sculptures and architecture are amazing. We went to Gilli’s for a treat and Vivoli’s for gelato. In fact. we had gelato at least once a day, if not twice. And I couldn’t have enough spaghetti-I loved it! I’m lucky that I just gained five pounds on the vacation. But we walked for hours and hours and hours every day, so I guess we worked off all those extra calories.
 
We picked up the car at the Florence airport. The only disappointing thing with that was I wished you had asked who was going to drive, because we had to pay a lot extra to have Mike drive as you assigned it in my name. (As much as I like to drive-I like to navigate more. I like looking at maps and my eyesight is better than his for spotting signs.) We haven’t travelled in so long, nor rented a car, so I didn’t think about this. Also, we paid for a whole extra day for the car even though we only had it a couple hours on that final day. It’s a pity that it wasn’t arranged from 12 noon the first day until 12 noon the final day. (rather than 10 am pick-up the first day until 12 noon for drop-off day) but it all worked out and was a lot of fun.
 
Toscana is beautiful! However, it is not an easy place to navigate. It’s a miracle that we found Tignano. Luckily someone helped us along the way.
Gabriella is amazing! We fell in love with her! (And her mother is adorable.) She adjusts to every situation. When we got there she said she wasn’t expecting us until the next day, but found a room to put us. And then she thought the cooking lesson wasn’t until Sunday (the day we were leaving) but she quickly arranged something else. It was so much fun to cook in the kitchen with her and her mother. In fact, other people heard about the lesson and joined us. Gabriella cracked open some bottles of wine and we all had a good time! Then Mike and I joined Gabriella and her mother to eat the fruits of our labor-and she cracked open some more wine. It was so much fun! We have a digital photo of Gabriella, her mother and her daughter, if you are interested. While in Toscana we drove to a few different sights. Everything is so beautiful and what a history! I could have stayed longer in Tignano and Toscana as there is so much more to see and experience. I just loved it!
 
Rome also is amazing. I love the way the new city is built around the ancient. Again, we loved each and every tour and the guides were terrific! We loved the hotel and the location. We found ourselves going by the Trevi fountain multiple times per day and it was beautiful in the various lights that we saw it in. We got plenty of exercise walking almost everywhere, though we did take the underground twice. One definitely needs strong legs and knees to truly enjoy a trip to Italy because the best way to see it is on foot.
 
I better end this now or I will never get this sent off to you!
Thanks for all you help. You were very attentive and managed everything within our timeframe. It truly was an amazing trip!
Rhonda