European Family Vacations & Tours

Zicasso's tour company is fantastic. They designed a perfect custom itinerary for us that included boating, hiking, biking, wine tasting, and much more. Our days were filled with interesting activities and meeting some of the most lovely people as our guides.

Though there were too many highlights to list them all, a few unexpected ones were a cooking class near Split that included shopping for fresh ingredients, snorkeling, lunching off a luxury boat near Hvar, and lunch at an oyster farm.

We had the most lovely guide in Dubrovnik who works for the tourist board and gave us the insider's guide to places in the old town. We even had an authentic meal, one that takes days to prepare, outside of Hvar. There is so much to love about Croatia. This tour company will help you find it.

Our Zicasso travel specialist did a fantastic job planning our family vacation for five adults.

Each hotel was top-notch. At the villa in Taormina, the rooms were luxurious, with unbelievable views of the bay and Mount Etna from private verandas. The staff were gracious and the restaurant's breakfast buffet delicious. Lunch and dinner were top-notch. The hotel in Agrigento was modern and the grounds were exceptional. It was close to the Valley of the Temples, with amazing views of the ruins from each room and the beautiful infinity pool. The hotel in Palermo was old-fashioned luxury with up-to-date facilities and close to the old town.

Our tour guides and drivers were excellent.

My only regret is that we only had 10 days to explore Sicily as there was so much more to see!

Our agent did a yeoman's job helping us plan this trip.

The entire nine days of travel from Slovenia to Montenegro were seamless as far as being picked up at the arrival airport and departure as planned. Transportaion was on schedule, which was important to me in a foreign country and eliminated any stress. Each private guide and/or driver throughout our trip was courteous and spoke English, which avoided any misunderstanding about all the wonderful sites we saw.

Lake Bled was absolutely wonderful. The guide parked the van at this family home four blocks from the lake and introduced us to his mother and sister, who welcomed us, and we saw how they lived in this beautiful village. The walk of four blocks to the lake also gave us the opportunity to see more of this quaint place to live. Since the lake does not allow power boats, we and about 20 other people were rowed to the island, where an ancient church was located. We found out that this family, in the past, were the caretakers of the island and our tour guide had to row himself to the shore to go to school and, in the winter, skate to school every day.

Next, we were driven to the castle on top of a small mountain, which had a perfect, 360-degree view of the area. Beautiful!

The next day we went to Plitvice Lakes National Park, with too many waterfalls to count and water that looked as crystal clear as any natural water I have ever seen. The four-kilometer walk upstream was nothing like I've ever seen in the USA.

We spent the night in a wonderful mountain lodge, with individual lodges and an upper-end-style bed and breakfast theme.

Split was a city with parts dating back to the third century, with many Roman influences in its many buildings.

Mostar in Bosnia was very interesting and had a central arch-style bridge which seemed to be a central point for all to see. There was so much we saw that it is too much to describe here.

We also stopped at a wine tasting at the most modern winery I've ever been to. It even had 12 guest rooms, with a pool.

On our way to Dubrovnik, we stopped at Ston to have an unbelievable lunch. At the restaurant, we had an oyster tasting of fresh oysters being farmed several hundred yards from the restaurant. We were served oysters three ways, from raw to fried and baked, and they were the best I will ever eat in my life.

We next went to Dubrovnik, which was particularly interesting to me because it is where Game of Thrones was filmed. Our guide was excellent, as he worked as a "roadie" for the film company, helping set the scenes by taking down modern signs or anything modern, and putting them back after filming. He had large screen shots in a spiral binder and would take us to a cove and hold up the screen shot of the actual scene from the movie to show us the similarity. His behind-the-scenes knowledge of the actors and the reaction from the town and church was beyond expectations. My wife and I were fans of GOT and so excited that we are going to watch if all again one day.

Our last day was in Montenegro, which again was beautiful, and we spent the day next to the water there. We were ferried to a man-made island with an old church on it.

Overall, the Adriatic Sea along the coast of these countries was one of the most beautiful stretches of water you could imagine.

Our expectations of this tour were met and exceeded.

The owners of Zicasso’s tour company were amazing from start to finish. They curated a custom trip for us to Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Málaga, Toledo, and Granada. They listened to our requests and came up with a brilliant itinerary that included personal drivers, hotels, dining recommendations, and tour guides. They were also so quick to respond to our questions and pivot our plans when needed. This was a very special 30th-anniversary trip for us and they knocked it out of the park.