In 1985 my parents sent me on a long European tour (maybe 3-4 weeks, I can’t remember) with a student tour group. We started in Athens and ended in London traveling primarily by bus, with an overnight ferry from Greece to Italy and of course a boat across the English Channel. During that time I think we visited 9 countries plus a Greek Island- Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Lichtenstein, Belgium, Switzerland and England.

So while this 2024 tour was technically not my first, I think I was more flexible 30 years ago, and definitely had no expectations! Let’s say that almost 30 years later I’m a little more discerning…

The best things about the 2024 Perillo Tour:

Super fun to be with Jim’s family – Charlie and Patrice Kelleher and Patti Etienne. And great to meet Kathleen LaVache, Mark Etienne’s cousin.

Great to revisit some favorite places in Italy and see coastal areas we have never seen before- Capri, Cinque Terra and Amalfi Coast.

Fun even to take the lengthy train ride together to Munich finding our way around multiple stations.

Good to experience group travel and find out what we liked and didn’t.

Except for the Auto Grille experiences, generally great meals and wine.

Some random things and thoughts about what would have made the experience better:

50 people is a large and cumbersome group; look for smaller

The tour got off track from the beginning. We were supposed to be in Rome first, but Perillo did not get enough hotel rooms in Rome. This forced them to put us on a bus to Sorrento (3 hr trip) immediately upon meeting the group. So we did the coastal areas first.

This meant Amalfi on a Saturday and Capris on a Sunday – busy, crowded days. In Amalfi (including Ravello), we walked around a bit and had lunch, but most of the day was a driving tour.

Capri was totally bolloxed up by the tour manager. There were 2 mini buses to take us to the port to get the ferry to Capri BUT they were 4 seats short. So Luca (tour manager) put 4 in a cab to the port and, guess what, they went to the wrong place. This resulted in most of the group arriving Capri about 2 hours before the 4 plus Luca. The local guide kept BS-ing us about the status of things and not letting us proceed with the tour (they would never admit to a mistake with the transport)- so we hung around the marina for a couple hours which put a dent in the entire day.

Luca dismissed the possibility of a tour of the Blue Lagoon (over rated, tourist trap)[but also a highlight of Capri] and built up swimming [no time], boat tour around island [no time], funicular [no time] and chair lift to the highest point on the island. Despite the latter being highly discouraged, a fair number of the group (JK included) went anyway. So we saw some beautiful sites and had a nice lunch, did some shopping and that was it.

I have previously reported what a nightmare entry onto the return ferry was with some of our group actually being denied boarding until my sister-in-law took matters into her own hands. Not great management.

The hotel at Castelmare di Stabia was nice enough, but not centrally located to anything (the pier or restaurants). We had 3 meals there since transport to other locations was discouraged.

I know this makes no sense, but the coffee was terrible at all 3 hotels. None of the hotels offered brewed coffee- it was all out of a machine!! In Rome and Florence, we learned to ask for a cappuccino (nothing offered). No breakfast items were made to order. All buffet.

As reported, our room in Rome was tiny, but it’s an older, central city hotel- need to expect this.

On travel days, lunch stops were auto- grilles! Aka truck stops.

In Rome we had one day on our own, meeting to go on a food tour at 4pm. This meant the next day was totally lost to travel (see previous description of 2 truck stop stops to waste time getting to Figline).I would suggest skipping the food tour ( “this is pasta, have you tried it before?”) and driving to Figline after the free day in Rome. This would have allowed more depth to the Florence visit.

And why did we stay in Figline- an hour away from Florence? The hotel was fine, but they charged extra for a pool towel (this sticks in my craw- 8 Euro!!!) and did not replace bottled water daily (none of the little perks one comes to expect). The distance from Florence put pressure on the time allowed in Florence and I’m betting there is a BW there…

All hotels were miserly with towels. I don’t recall this from prior experiences – we resorted to lifting a couple extra each time we saw the cart in the hall. And, nothing plush going on here.

Back to the food tour. I felt sort of sorry for these guides trying to impress us with rice balls, pizza, pasta and gelato. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but a very awkward vibe. Like we had dropped into Italy 5 minutes before directly from the Moon never having tasted marinara.

It would be impossible to describe the craziness around the group ticket (for part of the group) situation at the Vatican Museum. This took up an hour of our time (of course, JK’s side trip to the post office also was disruptive to the Museum tour…). Maybe Perillo had never been there before??

This past Sunday, we waited over 30 minutes for local transport after the train arrived back from Cinque Terra. This day was 6 hours on the bus from Florence, a ferry ride (1.5 hours) and two trains for about 3 hours on our own in CinqueTerra. Waiting additional time for a bus to the bus- irritating, when we had a schedule.

Our guide in Pompeii similarly avoided some of the more important/popular sites and we had to split from the group when they went to lunch so we could see them.

We had a good local guide in Rome for St Peters and the Colosseum. And a good guide in Florence for the walking tour and David.

Back in 1985, I think we were dropped in many places with maybe a little background, then toured on our own. But at 25, we had more hope of returning to these places for more in-depth visits in the future. The Perillo trip sacrificed site-seeing time to spend at lunch, shopping, logistics.

We will have to see what the future holds for group tours. I would never say never, but…