The Traveling Professor heads to Italy

Stephen Solosky, the Nassau Community College math professor whose alter-ego, the Traveling Professor, has been poping in and out of Paris with small groups of tourists for some time now, is taking on Italy in November -- and offering quite a good deal.

$1,999 will get you round-trip airfare from New York, 7 nights' accomodations  (3 in Rome; 4 in Florence), a welcome dinner, breakfast daily, unlimited bus and metro travel around Rome, VIP admission to the Colisseum, Forum, Pallantine Hill, and other sites, transportation between Florence and Rome via high-speed train,  guided day trips to Sienna, Pisa, Luca and Fiesole, and Solosky's services as a personal consierge. Groups are kept small at 15-22 travelers.

Pricing is interestingly flexible: Travelers book their own airfare, subtract their ticket cost from $1,999 and pay Solosky the difference for the rest of the trip. A search this morning for direct flights to Rome from a link on the Solosky's site turned up the round-trip fare of $726, including taxes and fees, on Delta Airlines.

Based on that, if booking today, the November 7 - 14 tour would cost an additional $1,273. That's $181 per night, including all the extras mentioned above.

BOOK IT: travelingprofessor.com

Stephen Solosky, aka "The Traveling Professor" strolls in the Tuscan countryside , above. (Traveling Professor photo)