I’m off again on Saturday morning and it’s Italy once more – but this time all of my clients are from the USA (38 of them altogether). We’re doing a lightning Tour of Italy for Great Rail Journeys sister company, Vacations by Rail – Highlights of Italy Featuring Tuscany & Venice.
I’m looking forward to this. My American clients tend to be hugely enthusiastic about what I show them and it’s infectious; it makes me feel like I’m doing something positive. People in the UK are often surprised by the speed that these Tours move around at and the sheer number of places that we visit in 10 days. Of course for us in the UK, we can fly to Milan in 75 minutes and return home the same day. For my USA clients, it’s a journey of at least 5,000 miles and a time change of 6 to 9 hours so they’re not going to be doing it every week – of course they want to do as much as possible!
The other factor that is interesting for American visitors is the age of many of the sites that we visit. Much of the best bits of Florence and Venice date back to the 14th and 15th centuries and of course Rome & Pompeii are more like 2,000+ years old. However, before anybody gets too condescending about the relative youth of the USA, it’s worth pointing out that Italy itself didn’t exist as a country until 1861 – making it younger than the USA and only a scratch older than Canada & Australia.
Will I be blogging? Yup! Of course I will (and we have several journeys on the ‘Flying Tomato).
TimOnTheTrain 