Italy

The Vatican before it opens

Through the doors ahead of the public, while the galleries are still empty. Your guide works through the gallery of statues, the Hall of Maps and the tapestries to Raphael’s Rooms, then into the Sistine Chapel early enough to stand and look up without being moved along.

Knees and shoulders must be covered, and the Vatican enforces it.

The arena floor, and the rooms they keep shut

Out onto the reconstructed arena floor where the gladiators fought, then the first and second tiers, the Forum, and up onto the Palatine into the SUPER sites: the House of Augustus, the House of Livia and Santa Maria Antiqua, with frescoes almost nobody sees.

Photo ID required, and the names must match the tickets exactly.

Rome underneath Rome

San Clemente is three buildings stacked on each other: a medieval basilica above a fourth-century church above a Roman house and a temple of Mithras, with an underground stream still running through it. Then the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine, so the layers make sense in order.

The Colosseum hypogeum

Down into the tunnels beneath the arena where the animals and machinery were kept, past the reconstructed lift that shows how twenty-eight of them were hauled up by eight men apiece, then out onto the arena floor itself.

Underground tickets are released thirty days out and can sell out within minutes. Access cannot be guaranteed by anyone. If it is missed you still get the full Colosseum, Forum and Palatine, and we will adjust or cancel without charge.

Michelangelo, from first drawings to the David

Casa Buonarroti first, built on land he owned, holding the early sculptures and drawings almost nobody stops for. Then the Bargello for the Bacchus, and finally the Accademia. Taken in that order the David stops being a postcard and becomes the end of an argument.

The Uffizi and the Accademia

Botticelli, Giotto, Leonardo and Titian with an art historian who edits rather than recites, then across to the Accademia for the David. Half a day rather than a whole one, which is about as long as anyone actually looks properly.

Priority entry skips the ticket queue, not the security check. The Uffizi takes up to ten thousand people a day.

Market, then the chef’s own kitchen

Sant’Ambrogio market to choose what you will cook, then into a Florentine home rather than a school, and a three-course lunch you made, eaten at their table. Capped at four people, which is what makes it feel like lunch rather than a class.

A day in Chianti, shaped as you go

Door to door from the hotel in a private car along the Chianti wine road, through Greve and Panzano to a hilltop estate for a tasting. After that the day is yours: another winery, a long lunch, or Castellina, Radda and Monteriggioni. Back by about five.

Lunch and any extra tastings are paid at the estate, roughly $45 to $80 per person.

St Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace

Eight thousand square metres of gold mosaic inside the basilica, the bronze horses taken from Constantinople, then the palace: the Golden Staircase, Tintoretto’s Paradise, and over the Bridge of Sighs into the prisons.

Not suitable for wheelchair users or anyone with walking difficulty, and no bags are permitted.

Murano, and how the glass is actually made

Private boat across the lagoon with a guide who can explain why Venice moved its furnaces onto an island in 1291, the glass museum, and the workshops. Where a furnace is working you watch it worked.

A live demonstration depends on the workshops being in production that day.

Venice by water taxi and gondola

The city the way it was built to be seen, with a guide and a private water taxi, stopping wherever you like. The Frari, San Polo, the Rialto market and San Marco from the water, and a gondola through the back canals rather than the queue at the bridge.

One price covers up to four of you. No gondola in Venice is wheelchair accessible.

The whole city in a day

St Mark’s including the museum and the Pala d’Oro, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto market at its best hour, and a private canal boat in the afternoon when the light goes gold and the day trippers have gone.

Lunch is your own.