Shrines of Italy

Most memorable part of this tour was Papal audience, St. Peter’s basilica, Vatican museum, and walking tour of Pompei.

Vatican and Pompeii

Our trip was amazing. All of the sights were wonderful. The sights were well planned with special privileges given to our group. Our tour guide, Valeria was very knowledgeable about Italian regions and cities. She dealt with some challenging situations with ease.

Too, too many to even give an idea of just how memorable this tour was. If anything I would have loved to have stayed an extra day in Assisi and also in Pompeii so as to visit the Amalfi coast. This is a truly beautiful country and our tour guide Valeria was phenomenal and gave us so much more education that I could have hoped for. Would love to come back and would definitely look to book through Colette again.

Great Experience during my time in Italy; favorite memorable experience-having the opportunity (twice) to stand within ten (10) feet of the Pope during our trip to the Vatican

Tour Manager is excellent! Well informed on the different places we visited. Local tour guide is also great except the ones in catacombs. The driver made us fall safe.

Tour guide is the best! I rate him at 1000%. Hotel in Rome is warm no air con! Rest of the hotels are very good! First dinner was not great!

In general, it was a wonderful Tour. Except for the choice of two of the hotels, it would have been a magnificent tour.

Our Tour Manager is very nice, helpful and very knowledgeable of what he does. Colette is very lucky to have him. Excellent job Mr. Giampaolo. We’re so blessed and lucky to have you as our Tour Manager.

I don't favor one place over the other. All the places we visited were memorable in special and unique way. I would love to visit Italy again in the future.

Seeing the Pope and having the perfect close seating. The weather was beautiful throughout the tour.

This was an excellent tour. It was well run and well managed from the booking to the Tour Manager to all of the local tour guides and the terrific bus driver. The entire experience was a pleasure and it exceeded expectations. It is hard to choose a favorite experience as one day great day led to another.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip

Not given aisle seats on the return flight which we were told we would have. Also, did not stop at a gift shop in Asissi where we had hoped to purchase several medals and a few other things.

Excellent tour guide, Giampaolo Naso and excellent bus driver. Giorgio. My trip was totally amazing, thank you Collette.

Our tour guide in Italy did an outstanding job. Giampolo not sure of spelling of his name. He was very caring and personable and professional. He made sure everyone always stayed together so no one got lost. He was extremely knowledgeable on all the tours. I would highly recommend him and Collette to my family and friends.

We saw much more with an organized itinerary and tour guides.

Soooo Many! St. Clare of Montefalco- the sweet cloistered nun who gave us a tour, since we are from St. Clare of Montefalco in Michigan. The golden altar at St. benedict's monestary and saying Mass there with our priest, such a small chapel inside a castle. Plus saying Mass with our Michaelite priest at St. Michael's grotto was special too. Our Tour guide Marco was the best! And our bus driver Pasquale was super sweet and an awesome driver!

An excellent tour with lots of sites to visit.

Great experience! Everything went smoothly and as planned. The meals were great. The tour guides were knowledgeable.

The spiritual faith our tour guide shared with us as a church pilgrimage.

It was a great "whirlwind" tour. We saw the east and west coasts of Italy, and visited some beautiful places along the way.

Timeline was a perfect match.

It was a memorable experience to be in holy place like where Padre Pio was.

The memories I carry from this trip are priceless

Florence day trip; Monte Sant' Angelo - Grotto of St. Michael the Archangel; Sanctuary of Eucharistic Miracle - Lanciano, Italy; Abbey of Montecassino, all the Rome sights.

As noted earlier, seeing the first of the Eucharistic Miracles, the one at Lanciano in the eighth century moved me tremendously. I also was fascinated by the abbey built into the side of the mountain, wondering just how an 11th-century society could accomplish what would be considered challenging today, even with our tools, machines and computers to help map out structural soundness.

Renewal of wedding/marriage vows at the Holy House of Loreto, shopping in Florence

Liked the tours and tour guides.

Excellent trip in planning and follow-through

I did enjoy the ciesteen chapel

They deserve it.

STRESS from moment we signed up for trip and thru the trip

Hotels, meals and tour manager. I explained my rating in the comments in the previous section.

See initial write up. Lack of communication

Great travel tour company. I would highly recommend them

Great tour. Would have liked more time in some of the churches.

Loved seeing all the beautiful cathedrals, basilicas, etc. as well as the sights in Florence Also enjoyed some of the side tours

Seeing the Pope in Vatican City was a big highlight for me.

We saw many beautiful and memorable sites on this pilgrimage and were blessed to have such a wonderful group to enjoy them. Collette should have shown us more of Rome aside from the many churches.

We certainly kept on schedule allowing us to see so much. Our tour manager was truly remarkable. Our driver, the best!

Well organized, food was very good, small group enhanced pilgrimage.

The shrines and the Vatican.

MY favorite place was Cava de Terreni. Hope there is another day.

Being able to attend several masses said by our priest, Father George. And visiting the Vatican. and seeing the Pope..

The Sistine Chapel, Our stop in Salerno and the Tomb of St Matthew. Our tour manager Catano was the BEST!

Having Fr. George say mass at many sites including 2 monasteries and a cathedral. Getting to see the Pope and having him pass by us so closely was a sure highlight. The Sistine Chapel was simply amazing.

Perfect from start to finish.

Visiting the Holy Stairs. Very spiritual experience

Everything was on time and as schedule.

Stunning and well done!!!

It was a wonderful experience, the tour manager and driver were amazing.

They were all too beautiful & I can not choose!

First the beginning flights wait time were unreasonably long. Because we (I)had no input on the airline of choice, the wait time for the Rome flight at the Philadelphia airport was 7.5 hours through American Airlines. Unreasonable! The special tour guide for the Rome events was horrible. He was to full of himself and absolutely ruined the tour through the Vatican Museum for me.

Papal audience and climbing the Holy stairs on my knees

Excelente!!! Grazie. I am 85 so I do not think I will be making another trip in the future. I really regret that. Thanks!!!

I did not expect to see all the Cathedrals and tours around the southern part of Italy. very memorable to me that I can never forget all the places we went to visit. I love all the places and the information that was given to us by the tour managers in different places. All of them were very knowlegable of the history of the places we visited. I commend and appreciate all the information and the beauties of all the places we visited .No one can outdo and remove the information for all the information I gathered, it will remain in my memory till I die . I love it.

Places that we visited are nice, great and interesting

The Tour Manager’s Lack of professionalism and poor knowledge of the Company’s philosophy.

the visit to saint Padre Pio

Most memorable experience was Florence, one day was not enough. Bus driver Antonio was amazing, maneuvering coach on narrow winding roads and hectic Rome traffic.Rome by night option was misleading, expected to tour the city sights instead it was an average meal.

St.Peters square seeing the Pope.

the tour was excellent for all sights

The tour was great! We were unfortunately combined with another group, most of whom did not respect time issues and were frequently late delaying the entire trip. This is my 5th trip and the value for the money seems to be decreasing, less included meals and tours - they try to "market" this as giving the traveler more free time, but when you are in a foreign county and don't speak the language free time is not necessarily the best. Don't even think about trying to upgrade your airfare, Collette charges an excessive amount, you're better to do land only if you don't want to fly economy.

Excellent values with high quality treatment from Collette staff

I loved visiting the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel!

Was a trip of a lifetime!

Our tour manager and driver were fantastic.

Rushed through on one day. Plenty of options during alone time. A lot of ideas and options given by tour guide. Tour Guide over and beyond. So full of knowledge, patient and always smiling. She went way out of her way to make sure everybody was where they were suppose to be when they were supposed to be.

All of them were fantastic.

The most I’ve paid for a European tour of 10 days, eight actually due to flight in and out. Hotels were 3 1/2 - 4 stars I would say. We had a last minute ( 5 ) day change in Assisi for our hotel stay. Assisi and Padre pio made an impression.

Heather V. made the trip great. We loved it.

The local flair of Italy. Each day had something special.

Not enough rooms for single guests, too many activities crammed into each day, and not enough time to do activities on own.

The tour was great, but exhausting. One day off in the middle of the tour would have helped. Needed a little rest.

I had no complaints! It was all my favorite...if I had one complaint it might be that I would have liked to spend more time in certain areas.

Excellent tour guide and the transport

Seeing the Vatican and especially St. Peter's

Florence was beautiful, but I was disappointed with our visit to Pompeii. The buffet food in the Assisi hotel was terrible. Overall, the food on the tour was uninspiring.

seeing the pope. rome at night the music,food and gelato

The beautiful mountain shrine’s were exceptionally beautiful and inspiring

Favorite experience was the papal audience. Also the museums and the colosseum . However, the trip was presented as moderate walking, whereas in actuality it was strenuous walking

Did see beautiful churches

Pompei, but I have to say i was surprise that the admission for Pompei was not include in the tour package pricing.This is a sugestion Florence should have at least 2 night stay so much to see so little time...

VATICAN CITY AND MUSEUM GREAT

Being at the Vatican and seeing Pope Francis

Our tour guide was kind and knowledgeable. Got us great seats to see Pope Francis

very informative and helpful

Rome tours,tours to all the shrines, etc.

The food and our guide Ms. Carozzi

I was happy with the tour. I will travel with Collette again.

I explained in earlier comment

Awesome experience! The Catholic themed locations were exactly what we were looking for. The tour manager and bus driver were outstanding!

Loved the pace of the tour and enjoyed the tour manager's experience and help.

I would say the monastery at Montocassino was the most impressive to me although every part of this tour was impressive. All these shrines had their own special aspect.

****** our tour manager was very knowledgeable and shared her experiences with all on the tour. Sites visited were exceptional.

The Papal Audience and St Pio were the major reasons I wanted to take the tour. I also liked visiting the other tour cities and the Churches were wonderful; however, some of the tour days were too fast paced, especially the last day. We visited 4 Churches and the Colosseum side trip in one day - it was too rushed, not to mention lunch was rushed. Some of the meals left a lot to be desired. The first meal at Satiricus Restaurant was great. In general, the hotel meals were good. The farewell dinner was so so - nothing spectacular. I liked Hotel Columbus because of it's location near the Vatican. Hotel Scapolatiello was the best; however, we had to lug our carry on baggage up steep steps. Our tour manager, did find a way to take the road down to the bus rather than taking the steps the next morning. I was under the impression that all baggage transfers were included on this tour. I think the museum (Florence) and the Vatican and Church tour guides were knowledgeable; however, after the first 10 minutes of construction dates and more dates - I tuned out. In other words, more practical items of interest would have been nice and more time to explore the Vatican and Churches on our own would have been great. Finally, we were at the Church across the street from the steps Christ went up to talk to Pontius Pilot; however, the steps were not on the tour route - a disappointment. All in all, I am glad I took the tour. I also got to make new friends from Atlanta also.

The very memorable experience on that pilgrimage was when visited the places that was not in our itinerary , it was a bonus and we all loved it, thanks to our tour manager.

Definitely the audience with the Pope and the Vatican. That day was THE BEST

Very Busy but greatly enjoyed the pilgrimage. I appreciated the added stop to Lanciano to see the Eucharistic Miracle. That same day we visited the Holy House of Nazareth in Loreto. That was definately my most memorable day...seeing Pope Francis up close and personal is at the top of my list also. I was disappointed that we were not allowed in the Colosseum due to a large group of students that entered....we did get a discount for the day but still disappointing.

Our tour manager Tony was a great guide.