Activity - Milan Travel Guide

This is my perfect example of what I would expect to see for Italia in the Renounce Era!

The trip was amazing! Wish we had planned to spend at least one day in Florence. The City is magical! Make sure you pre-book your museum tours as the lines are long and it is almost impossible to get in without a preset time.

Great experience. They book the train ticket for you and give you a hop on/hop off bus ticket. You do not meet up with a guide and have a personal tour planned out. You simply catch your train ours was out of Milano Centrale at 7:20 am and once you arrive in Florence you can wander about. The hop on/hop off bus was great to see the major sights and was easy to find and use. As part of your travel packet, they give you a tour guide book to florence a a couple of maps to help you find your way around. Then you just catch your train back to Milan ours left Florence at 6:30 pm or 18:30.

Florence itself was very interesting to see, especially the Ufizzi gallery. And the train ride between Milan and Florence was excellent. Traveling through Europe by train is the only way to go. Business class was very comfortable with very good service onboard. What I was very disappointed about and the reason for only three stars was the hop on hop off transportation in Florence. They show you a huge number of things to see and do and the reality is you have time for maybe two. So choose wisely. Why, because when you get off on a stop to see something, it is another hour before the bus comes around again. So most visits to what you want to see will require a minimum of two hours to complete what you want to see and catch the next bus. Even if you make a fast overview of what you want to see, you still need to wait an hour to catch the bus for your next stop. You get into Florence about 10:30 in the morning and by the time you wait for the bus to come along at the train station you are talking 11:00 to 11:30 AM. Your train leaves Florence at 7:00 PM and you should be at the train station by at least by 6:30 PM. The last bus arrives at the train station at about 5:30 PM. So at the very best you have is about 6 hours to do tours and catch the last bus back to the train station. It is really more like 5 hours. And if you want to visit the Ufizzi, you need at least three to four hours to catch the bus, get off and get your tickets to the museum, which must be picked up at least 1 hour before your entrance time and catch the next bus back to the next stop. Now you maybe have one more stop you can make before you run out of time. I hope Viator reviews this situation and comes up with a better way to see Florence then this hop on hop off bus thing. It might work if you stay multiple days in Florence but does not work for a one day visit.

Unfortunately I cannot rate this trip as good or bad. The packet with the tickets we got was not descriptive enough and since we were unfamiliar with Milan, we went to the wrong train station and missed the entire trip. We could of booked new tickets to Florence but as we spent 450 on 3 already, we were not adding another 330 to get there. I even asked at the visitors center the day before about the train station which is a couple subway stops up from that office and the person told me yes Milan Central is much further away I'll take it as a communication break down. I'll accept fault as I should of researched this more as its unguided and dependent on you alone to navigate the trip. If I could suggest anything, it would be more information on the train stations and any sort of instruction that first time visitors can depend on.