I used Adventures Abroad, a Canadian company. They do a lot of African trips, and Arabia also. The tour had several of us "single, senior" women and it was about 12 people. We had dinner arranged every night, which was nice. For Italy, I went with EF Go Ahead Tours and they were also great. The reason I chose them is they had two contiguous weeks of tours and it sounded like the EF one was more what I wanted. The group was about 35 people, all interesting and fun. Many older folk and not too many of us had to take a day off to rest. It was a little more work to manage two companies, as well as getting from Malta to Venice (had to be Ryanair, landing in regional airport and water buses to hotel). I had a total blast, and enjoyed the single room. I tagged along with others and it was fine.