Venice and Verona Carnival

Our Venetian adventure begins at our Departure Office in London St Pancras, as we board the Eurostar service to Paris, changing trains for Nuremberg, where we spend the night. On Day 2 we travel on through the Alps, passing from Austria to Italy via the impressive Brenner Pass, and on to Venice, where we walk the short distance from the station to our hotel, the 4-Star Hotel Papadopoli.

• Day 1 - Dinner
• Day 2 - Breakfast, Dinner

Today we enjoy a guided walking tour of Venice. We visit the ever-impressive St Mark's Square and Basilica. Afterwards, we enjoy a 'secret itinerary' tour, which takes us inside the intricate Doges palace, as well as over the famous 'Bridge of Sighs', named so because it gave prisoners their last views of Venice before incarceration.

• Breakfast, Dinner

Today, we pay a visit to the world-renowned Ca'Macana mask workshop. At this time of year, this studio is at its busiest, producing some extraordinarily intricate masks of all shapes, colours and sizes. We enjoy a talk here on the history of the carnival and how the handmade masks are made.

• Breakfast

This morning, we walk to the train station to transfer to Verona, famous for being the setting of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. After some free time for lunch, we head to our hotel for the next two nights, the Grand Hotel des Arts.

• Breakfast, Dinner

Your day is free to soak up the atmosphere of one of Italy's oldest Carnival celebrations today, dating back to 1531. The different districts of the city all jostle and compete for attention in an extravagant parade around the ancient city streets, upholding centuries of tradition.

• Breakfast

We bid a fond farewell to Verona today, travelling by rail to Turin where we overnight. On Day 8, we take the high-speed train to Paris where we connect with the Eurostar service back to the U.K.

• Day 7 - Breakfast, Dinner
• Day 8 - Breakfast