This trip in October 2024 was our seventh travel to Italy but we had not visited the Tuscany region in depth. The Rick Steves “Best of Tuscany” tour would fill in much of that gap. We had been to Florence, Sienna and Lucca on previous trips several years ago and it was interesting to return to those.

Our tour group of 24 was an enjoyable group from both coasts and the midwest. This was our fifteenth Rick Steves tour. We have frequently been the token midwesterners in the group. Our tour leader, Eleonora, was a vivacious and skilled Italian resident. As is typical of Rick Steves tours, we usually were joined by a local guide for part of the day then had the rest of the day to wander on our own. We have liked this mode of travel in European cities since it is a nice mix.

The individual pages of photos are arranged in the sequence of the tour. The map, courtesy of Rick Steves company, depicts the tour itinerary. The small numbers in the circles are the number of nights at each location. Some of the pages may have too many photos for a single screen. If there are, navigation arrows will appear at the top of each page. There are some photos included that we have to thank some of our fellow tour members who were gracious enough to share them.

On each page of photos, if you click your mouse cursor on a photo, a larger image will be displayed. You can then sequence through the photos using the navigation arrows on each side of your screen. Also a small circle icon at the top right of that window will start and stop a slideshow of the photos. The “X” at the top right of that screen will exit back to the original window. The slideshow timing is set for 5 seconds for each photo.

Click your mouse pointer here to go to the Florence region photos, here for the Sienna region photos, here for the Val D'Orcia region photos, here for the Sovanna region photos, here for the Pitigliano and Castiglione region, here for the Volterra and Lucca region, here for some miscellaneous photos that did not fit anywhere else.