Upcoming Tours

Virginia Garden Week

April 21-28?

Virginia Garden Week is the week of April 21 through 28th 2012.  In Jan. the list of tours will be published.  At that time we will know exactly what days and tours we will take part in.  Please let me know if you might be interested in this domestic tour.

 

May 1-13, 2012

The Best of Italy

Rome, Tuscany, and the Lake District

This trip will combine the best of our Tuscany and Lake District trips into one fantastic spring trip.  This is back to the basics for us.  We started this company to offer group travel to sites that the big tour companies did not go to because they were either off the beaten path or too expensive.  We wanted our travelers to feel as if they were traveling independently, but have the advantages that group travel offers. We achieve this with this Italian trip. After spending a short time in Rome we continue our journey to Tuscany where we will visit family owned villas, an antique market, a winery, and great hill towns.  In Tuscany we will visit three private sites.  On to Lucca before we  end by visiting the magical villas on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.  We feel strongly that this will be one of the best, if not the best, trip we have arranged in the last 15 years.  For us, we will be visiting sites we have seen many times, but returning one last time because we simply cannot get enough of them.  There is a wonderful mix of private experiences, public venues, and leisure time.  We will fly to Rome on May 1 and return to the US on May 13, 2012.

May 1   Fly to Rome

May 2    Arrive in Rome and continue by coach to Cerveteri to visit the Etruscan tombs.  "The necropolis near Cerveteri, known as Banditaccia, contains thousands of tombs organized in a city-like plan, with streets, small squares and neighborhoods. The site contains very different types of tombs: trenches cut in rock; tumuli; and some, also carved in rock, in the shape of huts or houses with a wealth of structural details. These provide the only surviving evidence of Etruscan residential architecture."   Our guide will escort us as we visit this magical place.  We will then have lunch at a local restaurant before continuing to our hotel in Rome. We will be staying at the Albergo Santa Chiara which has a fabulous location just one block from the Pantheon.  You really cannot ask for a better location!  The bus is not able to pull up directly in front of the hotel since it is in the walking district.  We will have a short walk to the hotel.  In the evening, join us as we walk to the Pantheon and Piazza Navona both of which are very near our hotel. Lunch included; dinner on your own.  There are several very good restaurants near our hotel, and at least 3 great gelato shops only one to two blocks away.  You can follow me to the best!

May 3   Tour of the Roman Forum and Museum Capitoline with a guide.  In the afternoon you will have free time in Rome or an option to visit the Vatican and St. Peters.  We will have the guide all day.  If you have not been to the Vatican and St. Peters, you can accompany him to these sites where you will have a guided tour (with a small group).  If you have been, feel free to soak up the atmosphere of Rome in springtime.

 

May 4    This morning we leave Rome to visit Villa d'Este in Tivoli.  Villa d'Este, masterpiece of the Italian Garden, is included in the UNESCO world heritage list.  With its impressive concentration of fountains, nymphs, grottoes, and music, it constitutes a much copied model for European gardens in the mannerist and baroque styles.  We will visit the villa, and then the garden.  After our visit we will continue to Castello Ruspoli, a family owned villa, where we will tour the villa, garden, and have lunch.  This is perhaps the best preserved Renaissance garden in Italy.  We will continue to our hotel in Pienza where we will have an included dinner in the hotel.  Our hotel will be the Relais Chiostro di Pienza  situated in the heart of Pienza, a Renaissance city planned by Rossellino - following the will of Pope Pio II, Enea Silvio Piccolimini. This ancient convent of the fifteenth century overlooking the Orcia Valley offers functional and comfortable rooms. It is located in the pedesterian area of Pienza.

May 5    Arrezo and its famous antique market will be our first stop this morning. Arezzo is the largest town in eastern Tuscany, north of Cortona and east of Siena. Arezzo is known for its medieval architecture and has an evocative old quarter.  The old core of Arrezo is an architectural masterpiece.  You will have time to shop or visit some of the sites in Arrezo  (There are several.)before we depart for the town made famous by  Under the Tuscan Sun.  Cortona is a gem with great shops, restaurants, and one of the top Etruscan museums in  Italy.  The following is taken from the Cortona city website about the Etruscan museum.  We will visit as a group.

  • It has been founded in 1727, when a few members of the Etruscan Academy donated their collections for the creation of this museum in the rooms of Palazzo Casali. Restored in 2005, it is today a museum of modern conception, which displays beautiful Etruscan and Roman treasures along with the sections dedicated to the Egyptian collection, the Medieval history of the city, the great works of art and painting of the Renaissance made by famous artists from Cortona such as Luca Signorelli and Gino Severini.

May 6    One of the highlights of the trip will be a visit the Corsini Palace and garden in Florence.  Princess Corsini is not only delightful, but also and expert on historic gardens.  We will enjoy a meal in the palace. You will have free time in Florence. 

May 7    You will have the morning to visit Pienza and  the Pope's Palace.  We will then depart for Villa di Geggiano.  The villa  and garden are wonderful and I guarantee you that you will enjoy the hospitality of our hosts.  We have been here several times and enjoy each visit more than the last.  Tonight we will stay in San Gimignano with views of the Tuscan countryside.  Life does not get much better!

May 8    We will visit the Corsini winery, Le Corti, where we will tour the winery, villa and have lunch.  Afterwards, we will travel to Siena where you will have time to explore this magical city with a guide who specializes in Siena.  Siena is walkable, has great sites, good shopping (the food stores are remarkable), and great places to sit and watch the world go by.  We will return to San Gimignano for the night.

May 9     After some time to see San Gimignano,  we travel to Lucca where we will spend one night. My suggestion is to get lost in Lucca.  It is a wonderful walled city with a great walk around the wall.  For those who still like climbing, the tower gives great views of the city.  We will visit the Pfanner garden in Lucca as a group.  The following is taken from the website.

With its lawns, its ornamental flowers, forest plants, and earthenware pots of lemons that accompany the monumental string of 18th century statues depicting the deities of Greek Olympus and the Four Seasons, the Palazzo Pfanner garden, ascribed to the genius of Filippo Juvarra, represents an excellent example of a baroque garden laid out in the heart of medieval Lucca. The octagonal fountain-basin set in the intersection of the two central paths and the elegant north facing lemon-house with on its top two lions and a basilisk, the emblem of the Controni family, decorate a green space where alternate box-wood and laurel hedges, two ancient bamboo cane thickets, yews, pines, magnolias, a long-standing camelia, bushes of peonies and hortensias, roses and pots of geraniums. 

May 10  Today we leave for Lake Maggiore and Stresa.  We will leave fairly early (8:00 AM) in the hopes of making our fist destination, Villa Taranto, by noon.  ( We will of course make a rest stop on the way.)  The botanical garden at Taranto is one of the finest in the world.  If you do not like gardens, you will like this one.  After our afternoon visit, we will go to our hotel, The Astoria, on the lake in Stresa.

May 11    Today we travel to VILLA CICOGNA MOZZONI where we will tour the villa and garden as well as have lunch with the owner.  The first time we visited we thought Count Jacabo would be 80.  You will see that he is not!  The remainder of the afternoon will be spent in Stresa or visiting the islands and their gardens.  You will have time to visit each island and the gardens as well as simply enjoy the lake.

May 12    Your last day in Italy will be spent on Lake Maggiore.  There is plenty to see and do at this magical place.  I can never return to Stresa often enough.  I suggest that you try to visit Santa Caterina del Sasso.  The hermitage was founded by the wealthy merchant, Alberto Besozzi in 1170.  He was caught in a storm one evening in his boat which capsized.  He prayed to St. Catherine to be saved.  If his prayers were answered he would give all of his money to the poor and retire to live as a hermit.  His prayers were answered and he went to live in a cave as a hermit. The views from this hermitage are spectacular.  I also suggest that you try the the cable car and alpine garden. 

May 13     Return to the US.

The price of this trip is $3200.00 plus airfare.

Included in this trip:  all hotels in Italy, breakfast each day, transportation by motor coach in Italy, all admissions where we go as a group, at least 9 meals (lunch or dinner), tax, and service charge.

Not Included: air fare, tip for coach driver, meals not included, drinks at some meals, and any purchases you wish to make.  We suggest that you take out trip insurance.

Aug. 30- Sept. 10

English Houses and Gardens in Kent and the Cotswold