I took a bucket-list trip with my lifelong best friend. Here’s why everyone should do it

It’s a sizzling June day in Rome and I’m pacing the lobby of Hotel Palazzo Montemartini, waiting for my best friend Tracey to arrive from London. We’ve known each other since we were two – sisters, really – and while we see each other every year, we haven’t had 12 days “just us” since I made a career move to Sydney in 2000. So what could be better than the luxury of time in one of the world’s most beautiful countries? No husbands, no kids and the rare treat of not having to organise a thing.

We join our travel concierge, Lynne, and a small group of 21 on Luxury Gold’s Ultimate Italy, an escorted coach journey taking in Italy’s postcard destinations: Rome, Pompeii, Capri, Umbria, Florence, Pisa, the Cinque Terre, Verona and Venice. In 12 days, it’s a lot of ground to cover, yet it never feels rushed.

The first morning gives us a clue why. It’s 7.30 and we’re one of a few groups already on a tour of the Vatican Museums. It’s not lost on us that seeing Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling before the crowds is a privileged moment. VIP experiences like this are a signature of the company, along with using local experts wherever we go and front-of-line priority, which lets us skip the Colosseum queue.

The next day we head for the Bay of Naples and Capri, with a side visit to Pompeii. We’re both coach holiday virgins, but any preconceptions melt away as we sink into soft, spacious seats and enjoy the Umbrella pines and Roman ruins gliding past the panoramic window. With all the logistics, including our bags, magically handled, we have hours along the way to catch up, or to listen to Lynne, an Italophile and natural storyteller who has a knack for uniting a group of strangers.

We arrive at Capri by hydrofoil, where a fleet of open-top Mini Coopers whisk us up, movie-style, the famous Mamma Mia Road to the glamorous Capri Palace Hotel. Its tiled interiors and spectacular views leave us all a little starstruck. The next morning, we have a boat trip to see the Grotta Bianca sea cave and lunch at Michelin star restaurant Le Monzu. Tracey and I spend the afternoon browsing cute perfumeries and boutiques, tasting local limoncello and having a dip in the pool before dinner. If I had the money, and a Hermes headscarf, I could happily stay forever.

On our way to Perugia we explore Assisi, one of the best-preserved medieval towns in the world and home to the Basilica of St. Francis and its Giotto frescoes. From Perugia, we head to Florence via the 14th-century hill town San Gimignano, followed by lunch in the Tuscan countryside at a former home of Machiavelli. I had