A very special and very select tour covering the cultural heart of Italy, the Tuscan countryside without neglecting Florence. This is a balance of cultural, culinary and social experiences which will delight the discerning. The local professional licensed guide will take you on a very personal tour of private palaces and castles, to include meals and wine tasting besides Roman ruins and ancient cities.

Itinerary

Tour base will be at the 4-star Hotel Villa Rigacci, a fifteenth-century casa da signore, 25 miles south-east of Florence in the Valderano Superiore (the plumbing, of course is strictly late twentieth-century). It is attractive from every point of view - the family who own and run it; the cuisine (the chef is French); the setting in the foothills of the Apennines; the general atmosphere which is that of a private country house rather than a hotel. All evenings and nights will be spent in the hotel with daily excursions as follows:-

Day 1
Arrive at Pisa airport; meet your professional tourist guide and take coach to Hotel Villa Rigacci, stopping to see the magnificent Cathedral, Baptistry and Camposanto that form the backdrop to the Leaning Tower.

Day 2
The scenic route to the Villa Chigi, home of Lord Lampton. Designed by Carlo Fontana in 1680, it is surrounded by particularly fine gardens round which we shall wander. We then visit the Castello di Fonterutoli, where we shall be guests of the Marchese and Marchesa Mazzei where we shall taste a selection of their wines before lunching with them. We return via the arcaded piazza of Greve in Chianti, which, as the name implies, is the centre of the wine trade.

Day 3
Visit Florence in the morning, then lunch with Donna Caterina Corsini at her 16th-century farmhouse on the estate of the Villa Corsini at Mezzomonte. In the afternoon we visit the village of Impruneta, renowned for its potteries.

A Tour of Tuscany and Florence
A Tour of Sicily
At Home at the Villa Michaela

Tour leader's biographies