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Norcia (Tuscany/Umbria)

Our Norcia itinerary offers a mixture of Cooking, Unique Experiences, and excursions to wonderful destinations in Tuscany and Umbria that includes an exclusive Chocolate Making Class at the Peruigina Chocolate Factory. The Norcia week is an 8 day, 7 night vacation that begins and ends at the Rome airport. Click on the itinerary name for more information about it.

Wine, Cooking, Truffles & Chocolate: A Foodie's Paradise in Umrbia & Tuscany : A Week of Food & Luxury

The Location
Norcia is a truly magical place that has inexplicably escaped the ravages of mass tourism... so far. Just 30 miles south-east of Assisi and 40 miles south-east of Cortona (The setting for "Under the Tuscan Sun"), Norcia is known by virtually all Italians to be one of the most breathtaking places in the country, but it is best known as a major culinary destination and as the birthplace of St. Benedict. This is where salame is said to have been invented, and is known to have the best prosciutto, sausages, truffles, etc. in the world. The town is exquisite, and the surrounding scenery is simply awe-inspiring.

The Accommodations
This is a week of luxury. Our guests all stay in the 16th century "Palazzo Seneca", a Relais & Chateaux resort. This ancient palazzo is located in the heart of town, allowing our guests to weave themselves into the fabric of village life all week. While luxurious, this resort is small and intimate. You will get to know the people here right away and feel an incredible sense of hospitality causing you to feel completely at home. Before you know it, you will be greeting staff of the hotel in town, having coffee with them at a local cafe, etc.

The Cooking
Three of our four cooking classes are held in the beautiful "Casa Bianconi", right next to the palazzo. This was the old home of the Bianconi family, who own the Palazzo. Spacious and beautiful, this makes for a fantastic setting for our cooking classes.

The cooking generally consists of full four and five course meals that are 100% hands-on cooking, not demonstrations. Everything is made by hand, from scratch... the old-fashioned way that Italian women have been using for centuries. The classes have the feel of a group of friends getting together to cook, with one person in charge of teaching. We cook, we drink, we laugh, we eat, we dance, we sing.

The menus we prepare at Casa Bianconi are traditional Umbrian and Tuscan cuisine. The ingredients are always the freshest. Veggies we buy together at the local vegetable stand, pork from local ranchers, etc. While our Soriano weeks focus more on home cooking, our Norcia weeks are a bit more luxurious, so we elevate our menus to something a bit more refined. We will be making Ricotta Ravioli, Tagliatelle Pasta with Chianina Ragu, Zuppa Inglese, Herb-Crusted Guinea Chicken, Spelt & Pear Cake With Sagrantino Wine Sauce., Norcia Lentil Soup, Umbrian Porchetta, Ricotta Crostata and more.

On one very special day during the week, we will visit the Perugina Chocolate Factory for a very exclusive and private three hour chocolate making class right there at the factory. Perugina's master Chocolatier will guide us as each of us as we make our own chocolates.

The Experiences
As with all of our vacations, our weeks in Norcia feature amazing once in a lifetime experiences. We go on a Truffle Hunt, we make fresh ricotta cheese with local shepherds, we take part in local festivals, we visit amazing wineries, we visit a small family-run olive mill, we meet Benedictine monks as we experience the Gregorian chant in the birthplace of St. Benedict, we meet a local prosciutto producer, and so much more. Our guests become part of the fabric of the village life as they mingle with the locals and get to know them personally.

The Excursions & Culinary Outings
Norcia is in the heart of Italy, near Assisi, Perugia, Cortona and Spoleto. It is blessed by being just a few miles from some of Tuscany and Umbria's most treasured culinary hotspots, yet it is very close to Rome… and we take advantage of it with our new friends.

You will fall in love with our vineyard tours of the unparalleled Sagrantino wineries in Montefalco, the traditional cold press olive mill, where we will sample olive oil while we discover the milling process. We'll visit a shepherd that will teach us to make Ricotta, and the Castelluccio Plain, home of the best lentils in the world. This week features sightseeing excursions to Assisi, the home of St. Francis, Cortona, the setting for Under the Tuscan Sun, and much more.

A Real Italian Small-Town Family Experience
This is without a doubt the single most important thing of all. It is what we are all about. We are constantly laughing together & having nothing but fun. Our groups are small, causing everyone to become friends right away, and by the time you leave, you will have become extended family... not just with us, but with the other guests. Have a look what past guests have written us, or better yet, if you are on facebook, join our fan page and talk with us, plus dozens of past guests!

Truly All-Inclusive Pricing
All of our cooking and wine vacations are truly all-inclusive in nature. We'll pick you up from the Rome Airport. From that point forward, all meals, transportation, tours, all expenses... everything is on us. The only thing you will pay for is airfare, personal expenses and any gifts you may wish to bring home. When it is time to say goodbye, we will take you back to the airport. There are no surprises, and no hidden costs.

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping
For the shop-till-you-drop crowd, you will find fantastic shopping opportunities right in Norcia, as well as our day trips to Cortona and Assisi.

A True Cultural Experience
Norcia has all the charm and beauty of the heavenly Tuscan towns so many of us dream of visiting, but what makes it so truly incredible is that it has managed to escape the ravages that mass tourism has brought Tuscany. It is a place that is still true to its history. It is a place where the local shopkeepers still sell local produce, and the villagers still smile and greet you as they open their hearts to you.

You won't find rows of stores selling trinkets and plastic snow globes. Instead, you will live the real Italian village life.

Let yourself go, and before you know it you will be on a first-name basis with the local butcher, and feel truly at home. This is the most common theme with our guests. They tell us that while they venture away from our home base on excursions, upon their return, they always feel like they are coming home… a sense of belonging.

There is a certain magic about Norcia that can only be experienced. Words cannot quite describe it.

  Sicily  

Our Sicily itinerary offers a mixture of Cooking, Unique Experiences, and excursions to wonderful destinations in western Sicily. It is a more active trip than our others, including a night fishing excursion, boating, snorkeling, and more, in addition to four cooking classes based on local Sicilian recipes. This all-inclusive vacation is 9 days / 8 nights, and begins and ends in Palermo. Click on the itinerary name for more information about it.

Cooking & Adventure on the Islands of Sicily

The Location
Off the west coast of the main island of Sicily, you will find the tiny little island of Favignana, just off the coast of Trapani and Marsala with a tiny little fishing village of the same name. Few foreigners venture this far off the beaten path, but people from all over Italy know this tiny island for its crystalline waters and beautiful rugged and natural landscape. Many Italians will tell you that this is what the island of Capri was like before becoming overrun with tourist traps. It is a place that still holds true to Sicilian heritage, local fishermen, and the relaxed Sicilian lifestyle.

The Accommodations
Along the southern coastline of Favignana Island, a peninsula protrudes along the rocky shores boasting a 180 degree view of the Mediterranean sea that surrounds, with a private white sand beach nestled in rocky cliffs. This is our private peninsula for the first six nights, at the magnificent "Nido del Pellegrino" property, which we have all to ourselves. The "Nido" is divided into eleven separate residences (10 attached), all with beautiful amenities. It is fully closed off to other guests while we are here, so we will have the liberty of a fully open coffee and snack bar, as well as all facilities to ourselves.

Our final two nights we will have left the island for mainland Sicily, so we will transfer to the heart of Palermo, and stay at the Hotel B&B St. Agostino right in the bustling "Mercato del Capo" district. This is a small, private hotel with only eleven rooms is housed in a 19th century palazzo, that was completely restored in 2010.

The Cooking
Our four cooking classes for this vacation are held in three different locations. Two of the classes are held at a local island trattoria, where "Pina" will be teaching our classes. We will also have a Sicilian pastry class that will take place in a beautiful villa overlooking the sea. Our final class, "Sicilian Sausage" will be on mainland Sicily with a local butcher from Trapani that is known throughout the region as the best of the best.

Everything is made by hand, from scratch... the old-fashioned way that Sicilians have been using for centuries. The classes have the feel of a group of friends getting together to cook, with one person in charge of teaching. We cook, we drink, we laugh, we eat, we dance, we sing. Our menus this week are all Sicilian specialties, using the freshest local ingredients all the time. When we make fish, it is usually fish that we caught ourselves that very morning. When we do our pastry class, we will use the Ricotta cheese for our Cannoli that we made ourselves the evening before.

We'll be cooking Eggplant Parmesan, Local Sicilian Tuna dishes, Cannoli, Arancini, Cioppino Soup, Sicilian Caponata, Pasta from scratch with Trapanese Pesto, Veal Marsala, Sicilian Sausage, and more. For those that don't eat fish, we will always have alternatives available.

The Experiences & Excursions
We put the word "Adventure" in the name of this itinerary for good reason. Our Sicilian cooking vacation is full of amazing experiences beyond the cooking that you are certain to cherish forever. This will be one of those trips that you tell stories about for years to come.

• We will shop among the locals for our cooking, picking fresh catch of the day from the local fishermen, selecting local produce from small vegetable stands.
• We will meet amazing locals that will tell stories of the past & the mafia history of this region while we dine in their private homes.
• We will spend an evening on the farm of an elderly shepherd that will make Ricotta cheese with us.
• On one night, we will awake hours before dawn to head out of the tiny fishing port for a night of fishing with the local fishermen. We'll cast our nets with them and tell stories as we await our catch at sunrise over the Mediterranean. We'll then head back to port, clean and sort our catch, then sell it to the locals at market!
• The afternoon of our night at sea, we will cook up our catch with the local fishermen for lunch, as we swim in the crystal clear waters of Sicily.
• We will venture into a cave that boasts ancient cave paintings that are 12,000 years old.
• We will visit a Tuna Cannery that spurred the international Tuna trade, from which the founders of the Monterey canneries and Alaska crab industry emigrated.
• We will boat to a remote island and swim in grottoes that put the island of Capri to shame.
• We will have open air Sicilian barbecues on the cliffs of the island.
• We will visit the Trapani Salt Flats, where much of Italy's Sea Salt is still produced just as it has been for centuries.
• We will dive for Sea Urchins during an afternoon of snorkeling, then eat them with bread and local wine on the cliffs of the Mediterranean, just as the locals do.
• We will visit two Marsala wineries, where we will taste an assortment of Sicilian wines and tour the cellars.
• We will see the bustling city of Palermo, not from a tourist point of view, but from that of a local, venturing deep into the massive open air markets.
• Finally, we will dine with a Baroness in her Palazzo, with breathtaking views of Palermo, as we learn the royal history of her ancestry.

* Note: People that will not want to take part in some of the more adventurous excursions will always have the option to shop in the village or spend time at the beach.

A Real Italian Small-Town Family Experience
This is without a doubt the single most important thing of all. It is what we are all about. We are constantly laughing together & having nothing but fun. Our groups are small, causing everyone to become friends right away, and by the time you leave, you will have become extended family... not just with us, but with the other guests.Have a look what past guests have written us, or better yet, if you are on facebook, join our fan page and talk with us, plus dozens of past guests!

Truly All-Inclusive Pricing
All of our vacations are truly all-inclusive in nature. We'll pick you up from the Palermo Airport. From that point forward, all meals, transportation, tours, all expenses... everything is on us. The only thing you will pay for is airfare to Palermo, personal expenses and any gifts you may wish to bring home. When it is time to say goodbye, we will take you back to the Palermo Airport. There are no surprises, and no hidden costs.

A True Cultural Experience
Most foreign tourists that visit Sicily stay on the east coast, near mainland Italy. Because of this, places like Messina and Taormina have become very well known, and as a result, VERY touristy. A great deal of the "Old Sicilian Charm" is gone for good in these areas. The west Coast (where we spend our time) still gives travelers that real sense of Sicilian lifestyle. It also happens to be where the most beautiful water is!

We believe that the best vacations are always the ones that are the most authentic. The ones where you immerse yourself in a new culture, embrace what makes them different, and become part of it. These are the experiences that build lifetime memories, so we choose locations like these for our trips, and they are always spectacular!

So let yourself go, and before you know it you will be on a first-name basis with local Sicilian fishermen, and elderly Sicilian shepherds, and you will feel truly at home. This is the most common theme with our guests. They tell us that while they venture away from our home base on excursions, upon their return, they always feel like they are coming home… a sense of belonging.

See you in Sicily!