Rome and the Amalfi Coast

Your driver meets you at Fiumicino and takes you to your hotel; nothing else is fixed today. In the evening a first walk, from Piazza del Popolo along the streets Sixtus V laid out in the 1580s to the Spanish Steps, and dinner nearby, at a table we reserve.

The morning with your own guide in ancient Rome — the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine, with standard admission. The passages beneath the arena, where men and animals waited to be hoisted up through trapdoors, are on the Park’s own Full Experience ticket, a separate ticket type with limited availability, on request. The afternoon is free. In the evening, dinner in Trastevere at a table we reserve; a food walk through the quarter with a guide is an option.

The morning with a private guide at the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, with standard admission, then St Peter’s, the work of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderno. An early entry to the Museums can sometimes be arranged, on request and subject to availability, and is priced separately. The afternoon is free. If you want one more thing, the Galleria Borghese with a guide is an option, for Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne; we reserve it as soon as your dates are fixed.

The boat day. The hotel’s shuttle or your driver takes you down to Amalfi’s harbour, where a private boat is yours for the day, weather and sea permitting: across to Capri, around the island under the Faraglioni, lunch at a beach club below the rocks, and back to Amalfi and up to Ravello at the end of the afternoon. The Blue Grotto depends on the sea and the tide: its rowing boats go in only when conditions allow, and a visit cannot be guaranteed. The boats run from spring to early autumn, and we confirm the services for your dates. As an option, instead of Capri or as an extra day: Pompeii with your driver and an archaeologist, the Roman town buried by the eruption of AD 79, on the World Heritage List since 1997.