Towns of Italy - Tourist Hub - Florence — Local services in Florence

VESPA TOUR - I want to preface this review by saying that we did 2 tours with this company and both ended up being good days. The guides were friendly and welcoming. Overall I’m giving this a good review but with the following caveat...

WARNING - only book this tour if you have previous experience with Vesapa’s, dirt bikes or motorcycles. I wrongly assumed that Vespa’s were super simple to learn to drive and that a quick lesson would be enough. After checking in at meeting point our group (12 people) got in a van to get to the Vespa location. Once there, we were given instructions on how to operate, then 1 by 1 given a chance to try. First, the trial area is gravel and they want you to go in a circle around a tree. Of the 12 in our group only 6 were able to operate the Vespas. So we rode in a van behind the vespas, not ideal, but at least we got to continue on for the rest of the day. After seeing the roads we were going to be driving on, I’m glad I didn’t drive a Vespa with little to no experience - the roads were windy and there was a good amount of traffic. After about 45 minutes we stopped in a small town, were given a snack (bread and a little salami) and had free time to wander around. We then drove again for maybe another 30 mins to a small church with a beautiful view. Next we returned the Vespas and walked to the nearby winery with a restaurant. We sat down for lunch and were given a small pour of a white wine. Next we had a small appetizer (honestly unsure what was in it? It was some kind-of vegetable polenta maybe?? That was my old complaint about lunch - there wasn’t any explanation of what was being served, or how much. Because next we got a penne pasta with tomato sauce (served family style) This was nothing special and I hardly ate any of it, thinking that another course (preferably with some kind of protein) would be next. But that was it for lunch - except for some tiramisu. So I ended up leaving a bit hungry. Afterwards we went into a tasting room to try 3 of their wines. This was a nice ending to the day, and it was nice to get a taste of more wine (but would have thought it would have been better to do the tasting before eating lunch, or tasting with lunch. Overall, this tour company did a good job of keeping everyone safe, and enjoying the beautiful countryside views. However, I would have chosen a different tour if I had known that learning how to ride a Vespa takes more than just a...

The bikes were not in good condition. Mine had many lose spokes and could have been dangerous on the rough roads. The guide was not provided with any tools so when her tire went flat, she had no way to repair it. She did have a first aid kit that she provided, not the company. The van to bring a replacement bike was broken. They sent a Vespa. We gave our height and weight information in advance but all the bikes were to tall for one person in the group as the seat did not go low enough. One lady had to ride a men's bike as there were not enough girls bikes. Again, they ask all this in advance. The guide was very knowledgeable and very helpful. She talked us through the bikes and made recommendations about speed and gears to use. She made sure we we stayed together. I would have liked more photo stops but we were running late due to bike issues. There were places on the road were the shoulder got very narrow and dropped off into a rain gutter. The farm was the highlight of the tour. The owners were very kind and informative. The lunch and tastings were fantastic! I would recommend the tour if you can get a good bike.

In regards to why I did not report the issue - Other people had bike issue (seats that would not go low enough, not enough girls bikes, etc) so we were already late get going. When we were riding on the rough cobblestones, it was impossible to notice. Once we were away from the garage and on smooth pavement, I immediately felt the tire wobble and told the guide. She looked at it and said we could go back and get a new bike, but since she could ne see an issue and we were already late, we chose to keep going. It was not until we returned that we discovered that several spokes were loose. Your shop needs to test every bike before they go out to make sure...

Horrible experience. We booked the “Florence Super Saver Skip-the-Line Accademia Gallery with Uffizi” museum with Trip Advisor/ViaTour, who we learned uses a local tour company called Towns of Italy to execute the tour. We booked the tour weeks before our trip and received more than a dozen emails, text messages and app notifications confirming the details. All of this meant nothing to Towns of Italy who called me the day before claiming there was some “confusion” over which of their tours we had signed up for. We agreed that I would check our tickets (yes, already received and downloaded to Apple Wallet) and email them the details. Unfortunately before I could do that they emailed me claiming the ViaTour had “messed up” and sent them a confirmation that we were assigned to a completely different tour. Worst yet, there were no more tickets available for the museum we had signed up to see! With this news we wasted a good part of our day going back and forth emails and calls between Via Tour and Towns of Italy who both chose to blame each other for the problem, while treating us like idiots, which may be true given that we had the bad sense to choose them in the first place! The right thing to do would have been to put their differences aside and solve the problem for their customer — a path which they both chose NOT to do. Hence our advice is to never, ever use Towns Of Italy or ViaTour again. We all work hard to plan a vacation and when our service providers screw up like this, and fail to take ANY responsibility, they deserve to never be rewarded with more...