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An 8-day discovery tour of two of Italy’s most beautiful destinations.
Welcome to Venice! At the airport, you will meet your private English-speaking driver who will accompany you to your centrally located hotel.
Overnight accommodation and free time to settle into your new surroundings after your journey and to start discovering this unique city.
The good thing about Venice is that everything is relatively close, so even a walk from Piazza San Marco to the Rialto Bridge is perfectly enjoyable at any time of the day; besides ‘getting lost’ here is such a wonderful adventure, with new things around every corner... It’s just like being in one Big Maze, but you can get very wet if you step off the route!
Venice is also known as a famous place for sweethearts, lovers, artists and poets, Venice is a magical city, which stretches across numerous small islands. It is often referred to as the city of "gondole", which are the means of transportation used to cross the numerous canals passing through the city.
After breakfast at your hotel, you will meet up with your guide for a walking food tour in this unique city. With this tour, you’ll get to the heart of the city through its stomach, dispelling those terrible rumors that there’s no good food in Venice. Of course there is, you just need to know where to look!
You’ll travel with a local foodie, learning, exploring and tasting the best food and wine that Venice has to offer!!
Will learn you how to savor the local street foods called “Cicchetti” such as marinated olives and polenta wedges topped with seafood. This tour provides a great introduction to the distinct flavors of VENETIAN CUISINE, a delicious experience, mostly far away from the common touristy routes. Taste different varietals of regional wine and toast your Italian vacation in Venice with a glass of sparkling Prosecco.
You will close your Italian trip in style with an amazing Gondola cruise where you will glide through hundreds of years of world-renowned heritage while being serenaded. Enjoy this special moment that will for sure bring unforgettable memories!
A walking tour of Venice that follows a delightful route through hidden Venice and features three celebrated "Secret Gardens of Venice" led by expert Venice tour guides who are all members of the Venetian garden association.
Learn the history that brought the locals to build gardens in such a difficult environment. Gardens in Venice come as a surprise and although many palaces own their private small garden, your impression while walking around is that Venice is a city of stone. Gardens played an important role, both functional and social in times "gone by" and these aspects will be discussed during the tour.
Our guides belong to the Venetian garden association and are experts on the history of Venetian gardens. We generally include the visit to three gardens, two belonging to convents and one belonging to a secluded palace, whose garden is a beautiful example of a renaissance Venetian garden as featured in the Secret Gardens of Venice Book.
A day of leisure to explore Venice. here are some suggestions.
You can visit one of the most popular and prestigious museums in Venice, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of modern art. It provides a welcome contrast to Venice’s ornate Gothic and baroque art and architecture. A visit here is a must for any lover of 20th-century. With our guide, we will select the most important hidden part of Venice difficult for a classic tourist to reach
Peggy Guggenheim, an important New York art collector who spent the last 30 years of her life in Venice, amassed an important collection of early 20th-century European and American art. Upon her death in 1979, her home on the Grand Canal, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, became the Peggy Guggenheim Collection museum. The palazzo and sculpture garden include works by such artists as Picasso, Kandinsky, Magritte, Dalí, Calder, Giacometti, Marini, and Pollock. After you can also visit the Art Galleries Bugno and the Giudecca 795.
Finally, we suggest you go to the Lido where you can walk along the promenade admiring a beautiful sunset.
Today, after breakfast, you will check out from your hotel to be transferred to your next fabulous destination, Alba. You will make the transfer by first-class train from Venice to Turin. At the station, your private driver is waiting for you and will transfer you to your centrally located hotel where you will have time at your leisure to settle in and explore your new surroundings.
Alba is a town and comune of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Cuneo. It is considered the capital of the UNESCO Human Heritage hilly area of Langhe, and is famous for its white truffle, peach and wine production. The confectionery group Ferrero is based there. The city joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in October 2017.
The Alba Cathedral, rebuilt in Gothic style, has a bell tower with city views. Nearby, the Church of San Giovanni Battista contains artworks from the 14th century onward. The Federico Eusebio Museum houses artefacts from prehistoric to Roman times, plus a natural history section.
Today, after breakfast, a tour on the wine route of this enchanting region awaits you where you will discover the production techniques of these fine wines known all over the world!
Home to UNESCO–listed wineries including Langhe, Monferrato, and Roero, Piedmont ranks among Italy’s most productive winemaking regions—but knowing where to find the best of them requires local knowledge.
On this tour, spin through the countryside with your guide and visit some of the vineyards and cellars for which Piedmont is famous.
Sample the diverse wines in production and find out what makes Piedmont wines so special. Visit local wineries to sample wines like Dolcetto, Barolo and Barbaresco.
Nibble on snacks from a platter of locally-made cheeses and meats while you sip. Learn why the Piedmont vineyards of the Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato are so special - they were named to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 2014.
Barbera is the straightforward, easy-going charmer of Piedmont’s famed local grapes, Nebbiolo is the ornery intellectual: It may reward lovers with a deeper, more meaningful encounter—but not without a fight. Like Pinot Noir, the thin-skinned grape thrives in cooler climates.
It’s often the first to bud and last to ripen, resulting in full-bodied wines with delicate aromas, yet intense tannins and high acidity. In both farming Nebbiolo and experiencing it in the glass, there is nothing easy about this grape.
Which is why fickle Nebbiolo is perfect for expressing subtle differences in terroir— especially in the Langhe subregion of Piedmont, where soils and microclimates can differ greatly within a few footsteps. In fact, as in Burgundy, a single Langhe plot might be divided up amongst multiple vineyards.
Growing the grape in Barbaresco or Barolo will produce very different wines—even though the two famous DOCGs are only fifteen miles apart. Barbaresco lies closer to the Tanaro River at a lower altitude; with its warmer temperatures, the region harvests its grapes earlier than Barolo.
Both regions have soils rich in lime and clay, but Barbaresco has sandier, less compact soils that are richer in nutrients, resulting in fewer tannins, and softer, more approachable wines than the heartier, firmer products of neighboring Barolo.
Today you will savor the most sought after delights of Piedmont in this tour that takes you into the heart of the Barolo wine region. Discover the tastes of this territory by sampling and purchasing some of the best flavors in wines, cheeses and chocolates.
Departing from your hotel, your first stop will be the town of Cherasco that combines snail farming and fine chocolate production in a historic setting. Here you will visit a traditional chocolate producer and sample a variety of chocolates, including the renowned baci di Cherasco.
Next stop is Bra, home of the cheese that bears the town's name and the birthplace of the influential Slow Food movement. Visit a cheese-producing farm that dates back to the early 1900s and enjoy a guided tasting of a variety of their cheeses.
A sightseeing tour of the Langhe wine-growing region will follow. After a brief stop at the wine bank in Pollenzo, you'll continue on to the imposing 13th century Castello di Grinzane Cavour (exterior only); the castle's red brick profile can be seen from all over the Langhe. You'll then head to the village of La Morra where you'll have time to shop or have lunch in a local restaurant.
The final stop of this gourmet day will be one of the 11 picturesque Barolo villages where you'll visit the historic cellars of a renowned producer of Barolo wine with a tasting of three/four wines to follow.
A day at leisure to explore Alba and it's surrounds
It is not possible to talk about Alba without talking about food, as this city, rich in history and beauty, is one of the capitals of Piedmontese and Italian gastronomy.
There are many specialities that you can taste in the various restaurants in the area such as butter tajarin; raw meat allabese (piemontese veal slices seasoned with oil, pepper and parmesan flakes); the vitello tonnato; the vegetable flan; the ravioli of mixed meat; the bagna cauda; the mixed fry; the financier (poor peasant recipe based on offal). Many of these dishes are enriched by the very famous Alba White Truffle like butter tajarin, raw meat, baked egg or risotto.
And then the sweets of the area made with the Piedmont IGP hazelnut as the traditional bonet and hazelnut cake. And let's not forget the renowned wines produced in the area such as the Barbera d'Alba DOC.
Every year, in September, a series of events take place in Asti, which is the heart of the city's historical identity and its link with the territory: the Douja d'Or, one of the most important wine competitions in Italy, the Festival of the festivals, "great restaurant" in the open air where the cooperatives of the various neighboring villages serve the traditional dishes of Asti, and the Palio, one of the oldest in Italy that, after a rich parade in medieval costumes, culminates with a bareback horse race.
After breakfast at your hotel, it's time to check out and say “Arrivederci” to Italy! Your English-speaking driver will accompany you to Turing Airport in time to board your onward flight.
We are sure you will have enjoyed your “Gardens and Gourmet” tour and we sincerely hope to see you again soon for another delicious experience!
