The season’s first guests arrived this morning at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport after their overnight flight from Newark. Art and Carol like to hit the ground running. As a special service, I had made arrangements with the hotel so that their room was ready immediately on our arrival at 9:30. A couple of hours […]

The old gentleman at my hotel reserves a table at Il Bucatino in the Trastevere district for me. It’s an easy walk down the hill in the last of the evening’s light. On arrival, I announce myself as “Giacomo da Hotel San Pio,” and find that I have a table with my name on it […]

Arrival in Rome around 1 this afternoon and the blood pressure starts to go up along with the intense traffic. I’m always happy to be driving a van in the rough and tumble world of Roman driving. Seems like those behind the wheel of a Fiat are much less likely to cut in front of […]

Leaving Rothenburg en route to Rome to pick my my clients on a bright, sunny and warm day I completely forgot to take along a jacket or even a sweater. Not too smart for a seasoned traveler. That night, I wished I had one as the temperature dropped with every 100 kilometers I drove south […]

Sunday it was balmy, about 76 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Today it’s raining and barely 45. That’s spring in Germany! I hear that it’s 84 and perfect in Sarasota. (And that’s not gray in my beard, that’s frost!)

European Focus Private Tours are the antidote to all of the upcharging and exhaustion-inducing “touring” forced on people by the mass produced travel industry. We don’t nickel and dime our guests. Your final payment is your final payment, period. Meals are included – and our guests choose what they want from the menu. No “optional” […]

The value of the dollar has a huge impact on the cost of travel and doing business in Europe. Right now, the dollar is “relatively” strong. Relative, that is, to the terrible weakness in the fall of 2008 when a Euro cost as much as $1.65 Travelers may look back on the current $1.31 to […]