Fabrizio possesses a true love of his region and homeland.
Jun 2007
Fabrizio, and our tour of Pisa and Florence. He is a gentleman in every sense of the word! Fabrizio possesses a true love of his region and homeland. He educated our family about the history and current commerce of the area. We saw both leaning towers in Pisa! While in Florence, he also took our family to the absolute best gelato stand in all of Italy! We truly feel that a finer tour guide could not be found to show our family the sights in Pisa & Florence. When we arrived back to our ship in Livorno, our family - especially our sons felt as though Fabrizio was family, perhaps a cousin! Photos were taken of Fabrizio and our family, our only regret was something magnetic near security in the National Museum in Rome erased not only those photos, but over six hundred photos of our entire twelve-day cruise. How sad, we will have to come back to Italy again. While in Rome, Remo had made arrangements for our day trip and also for us to have lunch at a small cafe in Castel Gandolfo. The sights were beautiful and the food was fabulous! Manuele, our tour guide for Villa Este, Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa, Castel Gandolfo, and the San Callisto Catacombs. He was very polite and a gentleman as well. We truly enjoyed his company. As well, Our 19-year-old son Nicholas and his 19-year-old girlfriend Lisana really enjoyed talking with him about life in Italy. Especially soccer, while we were in Rome, Italy won the World Cup!! How very exciting! In addition, Manuele told us about the church - Santa Croce in Gerusalemme where there are actual pieces of the cross Christ was crucified on near San Giovanni in Latino. Our family is Roman Catholic. We visited both churches, it was an emotional and memorable afternoon for all of us. Thank you to Remo as well. Roberto was the gentleman who picked us up at the dock in Livorno and took us to our hotel, Canada Hotel on Via Vincenza in Rome. Although his command of the English language was limited, he understood we needed to stop at a Farmacia for medicine for our 15-year-old niece. He found a store that was convenient and also helped us with finding a bank with an ATM. He pointed out sights on the way to the hotel as well. Imagine our surprise when a week later it was Roberto who arrived at our hotel to take us to the airport. It was very nice to see a familiar face. For any future visits to Italy, our family really has only one choice, to choose.
Teresa Topping