Italy small group tour, a food adventure
Highlights
Rome | Pancole | San Gimignano | Via Francigena pilgrimage route | Bologna | Modena | Venice with Cicchetti crawlDescription of Italy small group tour, a food adventure
Pizza and pasta are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the diverse array of unforgettable food you’ll find on this small group foodie adventure in Italy. Travel from Rome to Venice, accompanied by a local leader who can give you an insider’s guide to this epicurean wonderland. This trip takes in some of the titans of regional Italian cuisine – Rome (the Lazio region), Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Venice ¬– with wine tours and orientation walks included to introduce each place through its cuisine.Taste real balsamic vinegar in an attic acetaia in Modena and enjoy a farmstay in Tuscany for an insider’s glimpse of wine and olive production in this iconic region. With hands-on cooking classes led by local masters, you’ll learn to roll pasta like a pro, and prepare an authentic tagliatelle al ragu in the city where it all started, Bologna. There’s also the option to burn through some of those calories by walking part of the pilgrim’s route, the glorious Via Francigena. Travel for eight days via bus, minibus, train and metro, to discover the best of Italy’s regional, seasonal and super fresh cuisine.
Travel Team
If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one we're very happy to help. The Travel Team.
01273 823 700 Calling from outside the UK? rosy@responsibletravel.com
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Food Adventures
What is a small group adventure?It's a great way to travel! Whether you are travelling on your own, with a partner or with friends, a small group trip is a fantastic way to see the world. You'll travel on a fixed itinerary that has been designed to help you discover the best of region. From the known highlights, the hidden gems that you won't find in the guidebooks.
Itineraries run on set departure dates, accompanied every step of the way by an English speaking local group leader. You chose the itinerary and the date that suits you best and you book on.
Why travel on a small group adventure?
Small groups allow us to explore where larger tour groups can't. Our maximum group size of 16 travellers allows us to use local transport to get from A to B, to visit rural villages, spend time with the locals and even stay at a local home overnight, and it allows us to give our travellers genuine, real life experiences of the countries we are visiting; what you'll be doing and how you'll travel depends entirely on your chosen itinerary.
Is an adventure right for me?
The word adventure means something different to everyone, and our range of trips reflects that. Whether you want to explore local markets, visit out of the way temples and meet local people or go on an early morning safari drive searching for the 'big five', we'll have a trip for you. If you are looking for a physical challenge such trekking the Kokoda Track or summiting Kilimanjaro, we can help with that too.
So what makes a Food Adventure different?
Our focus on these trips is exploring our destination through regional specialities, eating where the locals eat, learning to cook traditional dishes and refreshing your palate with the local tipple! Our usual grass roots style of travel is still very much in evidence and you'll still get to explore a region's highlights as well as more out of the way places under the guidance of your group leader, but there will be a lot of focus on the unique flavours of the region you are visiting.
Responsible tourism
As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we screen every trip so you can travel knowing your holiday will help support conservation and local people.
As a global tour operator, we are committed to travelling responsibly and endeavour to practise sustainable tourism wherever we visit. We believe that responsible travel is about the attitude you take with you and the choices you make when travelling - to respect and benefit local people, their cultures, economy and the environment.We expect our staff and travellers to demonstrate the principles of responsible travel - respecting people, cultures and local environments; in the distribution of wealth, in good will and cross-cultural sharing and in contributing to sustainable development.
We take care in ensuring we use local transport throughout and always travel in small groups – this tour has a maximum of 12 but our average is around 10 passengers – and this enables us to stay in locally owned, small accommodation, encouraging unique connections with local people.
The Impacts of this Trip
This tour will lead you on an exciting, culturally rich and flavoursome journey through the variable cuisines of Italy, with countless opportunities to interact with local people and learn their delicious cookery secrets. On this trip in particular you stay at a family run agriturismo and witness the regional tradition of olive-oil pressing.
In Bologna we visit the local market to collect ingredients for our cooking class, held in the heart of the local food market. We visit the producers of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Prosciutto di Parma and a centuries old acetaia [vinegar loft] to learn all about the production of Balsamic vinegar. These experiences not only give our travellers a great insight into local life, but also put imperative financial resources back into the local economy, create jobs and support local businesses.
From Venice we head out into the agriturismo-rich area of Marca Trevigiana, famous for its sparkling Prosecco wines and divine local produce. We sample Monte Cesen’s delicious mountain cheeses on a visit to a local cheese maker before visiting Cesare de Stefani’s salami ‘factory’. We encourage our travellers to purchase their souvenirs from the local businesses and to get involved with making the foods as well as sampling them, channelling money back into their economy.
As a company, our responsibilities don’t stop when our tours end. We run and support a variety of projects, from healthcare, education, human rights, child welfare, sustainable development and environmental and wildlife protection. Our own in house foundation has been in operation for over 11 years; a not-for-profit fund that has distributed over AU$3 million to more than 70 non-government organisations since 2002. Donations come from our travellers and are then matched by us dollar for dollar.
As a global tour operator, we are committed to travelling responsibly and endeavour to practise sustainable tourism wherever we visit. We believe that responsible travel is about the attitude you take with you and the choices you make when travelling - to respect and benefit local people, their cultures, economy and the environment.We expect our staff and travellers to demonstrate the principles of responsible travel - respecting people, cultures and local environments; in the distribution of wealth, in good will and cross-cultural sharing and in contributing to sustainable development.
We take care in ensuring we use local transport throughout and always travel in small groups – this tour has a maximum of 12 but our average is around 10 passengers – and this enables us to stay in locally owned, small accommodation, encouraging unique connections with local people.
The Impacts of this Trip
This tour will lead you on an exciting, culturally rich and flavoursome journey through the variable cuisines of Italy, with countless opportunities to interact with local people and learn their delicious cookery secrets. On this trip in particular you stay at a family run agriturismo and witness the regional tradition of olive-oil pressing.
In Bologna we visit the local market to collect ingredients for our cooking class, held in the heart of the local food market. We visit the producers of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Prosciutto di Parma and a centuries old acetaia [vinegar loft] to learn all about the production of Balsamic vinegar. These experiences not only give our travellers a great insight into local life, but also put imperative financial resources back into the local economy, create jobs and support local businesses.
From Venice we head out into the agriturismo-rich area of Marca Trevigiana, famous for its sparkling Prosecco wines and divine local produce. We sample Monte Cesen’s delicious mountain cheeses on a visit to a local cheese maker before visiting Cesare de Stefani’s salami ‘factory’. We encourage our travellers to purchase their souvenirs from the local businesses and to get involved with making the foods as well as sampling them, channelling money back into their economy.
As a company, our responsibilities don’t stop when our tours end. We run and support a variety of projects, from healthcare, education, human rights, child welfare, sustainable development and environmental and wildlife protection. Our own in house foundation has been in operation for over 11 years; a not-for-profit fund that has distributed over AU$3 million to more than 70 non-government organisations since 2002. Donations come from our travellers and are then matched by us dollar for dollar.
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