Tuscany & Umbria

This day will be devoted to the visit of Florence, its monuments, its gardens and the San Lorenzo Market.

Florence can be considered a real open-air museum. Those who love architecture in Florence should not do anything else but wander the streets of the historic center and admire the beautiful squares and the historic buildings of the city.  Some of the most important artists of the past, such as Michelozzo, Andrea di Cambio, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo have contributed to making Florence so rich in artistic wonders

Walking tour from parking to the magnificient complex of Santa Maria del Fiore with its huge Cathedral, the Bell Tower and the Baptistery. In the morning we will visit the Uffizi Museum one of the most important museums in the world. It has been projected by Vasari and wanted by Lorenzo de Medici to house the most important works of the Italian Renaissance.   Visit to the Famous market of San Lorenzo: opened air area with all handcraft boots (leather, ceramics, paper and any kind of souvenir) and the closed area completely devoted to the food. Here you can have your own snack tasting the real genuine “Panino with Lampredotto” (the abomasum of the slaughtered cattle, used as a low quality food, but very appreciated in the typical Florentine cuisine).

We cannot miss a walk on Pontevecchio Bridge and visit to the gold boutiques, where gold masters are there for 400 years to melt, engrave, chisel, embed gold and worked silver.

The afternoon is still long and you will remain impressed by the visit of the Boboli Gardens, the historical park in the city of Florence that was opened to visitors in 1766. It represents one of the best existing examples of a 16th century Italian garden, a model for many European courts. Here the visitor can walk a series of terraces, avenues and paths, up to the hill where there is a rare collection of sculptures ranging from Roman antiquity to the seventeenth century

Overnight in Florence.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

The day will be devoted to the discover of Siena the main historical town of Chianti area and San Gimignano a small village famous also under the name of the town of the hundred towers.

Siena: the medieval city par excellence, it is a city with a glorious past, full of medieval and historical reminiscences. Its success is due to the ancient Via Francigena, which crossed the Sienese connecting the north to Rome. Your English speaking local guide will take you into the city to admire:PIAZZA DEL CAMPO With its typical shell shape it serves as a boundary for the main surrounding monuments, such as Torre del Mangia, the Palazzo Pubblico (which houses the municipal museum) and the Gaia spring. The square hosts the famous Palio di Siena twice a year, which transforms the area into an open-air stage for this emblematic medieval spectacle. The Torre del Mangia is 88 meters high and was raised in 1338. From the top you can enjoy a spectacular view of the whole city, then visit it and walk all the steps to the top. CATHEDRAL  Excellent Italian Gothic emblem, can be visited for a fee every day except Sunday morning. Famous for its white, black and green marbles, great artists like Donatello, Michelangelo and Pisano have worked there.
Stop to visit the Italian Enoteca, to taste the most famous Italian wines (Exposition, Winebar, Wineshop).

Continue to Casanova di Pescille, a farm whose main products are wine (Vernaccia), grappa, olive oil, honey and pure suffron.

Lunch in the Farm with tipical product .Visit of the farm and then continue the tour to San Gimignano, an ancient fortified medieval village whose walls date back to the year one thousand. It is famous for its historical and artistic heritage and its architecture, especially its towers. In 1990 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

In the morning you will admire Villa Gamberaia in Fiesole, a small and beautiful tuscan villa with its gardens… Nowhere else in your memory, liquid and solid have they been mixed with so much refinement in a dimension that is human and yet grandiose without pomposity. . . . We remain with a lasting impression of serenity, dignity and blissful rest.

After the visit departure to reach the Green Umbria, but we cannot avoid to visit few precious villages still in Tuscan Territory:

Montepulciano (medieval village of rare beauty) and the Daniel Spoerri Gardens.

After lunch we will continue to Montalcino a medieval village, “capital” of the famous Brunello wine. Here we will enjoy a wine taste in a farm.

BagnoVignoni  with its 30 inhabitants a small and extraordinary village in the heart of the Val d’Orcia, among the green hills of Siena. This place owes its fame to the square of water fed by a spring. The water that flows from the spring at a depth of 1000 meters goes back to the surface and is collected in the town square. The water temperature, fixed at 52 ° degrees, creates extraordinary scenographic effects, especially in winter, when it comes into contact with cold air. And then all around, stone houses, flowered balconies, squares, workshops of artists and craftsmen, create an extraordinary architectural ensemble that makes BagnoVignoni one of the most beautiful villages in the world.

We will continue to our hotel in ChiancianoTerme, spa village.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We will proceed to Trasimeno Lake immersed in the green Umbrian hills, it  is the fourth largest in Italy. On its shores there are villages of breathtaking beauty such as Castiglione del Lago where we make at stop for a typical lunch.

We will continue the trip to Perugia that we will visit upon arrival. The city is a small jewel that opens up slowly before the eyes of visitors. The Umbrian town preserves artistic and monumental treasures that bear witness to its rich past and render justice to the cultural primacy of our country. Although it preserves the appearance and the rhythm of life of a small fortified medieval village, Perugia has a very intense city life, linked above all to the presence of one of the oldest University of the Peninsula (founded in 1308), as well as the greater University for foreigners of Italy. Its most important monuments are: The Fontana Maggiore, one of the most famous in Italy and symbol of medieval Perugia; the San Lorenzo Cathedral, the PozzoEtrusco a great hydraulic work that testifies the technical knowledge and the degree of civilization reached by the people of Perugia 300 years before Christ.

The complex of San Pietro Abbey, a treasure trove of wonders such as the Cathedral and the Treasures Gallery, houses the arcane charm of the Medieval Garden. Numerology, symbology, religion … all combine to create an aura of intriguing mystery around this “hortusconclusus” designed on the basis of medieval culture and Benedictine conceptions, a garden that was created by prof. Menghini where once stood the botanical garden (now in another location), on the occasion of the celebrations of the one hundred years of the Faculty of Agriculture.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We will move around the Umbrian landscape to reach Spello”Splendidissima Colonia Julia” in Roman times and today one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. During the Corpus Domini between May and June the streets of the medieval village are transformed into a wonderful, spectacular, immense carpet of flowers that exceeds 1.5 km. The streets of the center are decorated with paintings of sacred art composed of flower petals, a unique event for religious tourism, this is why it is called “the Capital of the Flowers). Noteworthy is also Villa Costanzi, better known as Villa Fidelia: created on the ruins of a Roman sanctuary, has a terraced structure. In addition to hosting cultural events and quality concerts every year, it contains a beautiful park with ancient trees and an eighteenth-century building where an exhibition dedicated to contemporary artists such as Tamburi, Guttuso, Mangù and Ligabue and another dedicated to artists is set up, classics like Tiziano, Carracci and Fattori.

Then proceed to Spoleto ancient capital of the Longobard will leave you breathless thanks to the wealth of the city’s historical-artistic heritage, testimony of the most diverse historical eras that saw it as the protagonist. If you do not suffer from vertigo, go up the Ponte delle Torri that joins the Rocca and Monteluco. This bridge is impressive and unique: 230 meters long and 82 high, it seems to have been erected between the thirteenth century and the following century. Among the things to see in Spoleto there is the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, a rare example of synthesis of Romanesque architecture, which houses frescoes by Pinturicchio and Filippo Lippi, and the beautiful Casa Romana attributed to the mother of Emperor Vespasiano Polla.Since 1958, every summer Spoleto becomes the setting and stage of the Festival dei Due Mondi, the “creature” of Maestro Giancarlo Menotti, where artists from all over the world perform in concerts, dances and shows. A real tribute to art in all its forms!

We will continue to Bevagna “the village of the villages 2018 for Umbria”, characteristic medieval town surrounded by ancient walls. The Roman theater is now used as a laboratory for the processing of ceramics.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Departure to Orvieto, one of the oldest cities in Italy, owes its origins to the Etruscan civilization: the first settlements date back to the 9th century BC. and they were located inside the tufaceous caves obtained in the massif on which the Umbrian town currently stands.

Although the fame of Orvieto is deeply intertwined with that of its magnificent cathedral, the city offers numerous ideas and historical-artistic itineraries, precisely by virtue of its ancient origins. Perched on a cliff, moreover, Orvieto offers truly splendid panoramic views.

The Cathedral, Started in 1290, it was then continued by Lorenzo Maitani, to whom we owe in particular the admirable facade with its exceptional bas-reliefs; the elegant front, 40 meters wide and 52 meters high, is embellished with mosaics and the rose window by Andrea Orcagna. The interior of the Duomo is adorned with important works, including the famous frescoes by Luca Signorelli and the Corporal Reliquary.

The frescoes of the New Chapel (painted from 1499 to 1504 by Luca Signorelli, who depicted Heaven and Hell, elect and reprobate, scenes with prophets, angels and saints) will surely leave you breathless for their beauty and brightness of their colors.

You will surely be surprised to immerse yourself in the timeless atmosphere of the Underground City which was entirely obtained from the cavities excavated by the inhabitants over the centuries, full of wells and caves. The most famous is probably the Pozzo di San Patrizio, next to the municipal gardens that are located inside the Albornoz Fortress.The well, an extraordinary work of civil engineering of the sixteenth century, was excavated at the behest of Clement VII, who took refuge in Orvieto during the sack of Rome in 1527. Its construction, desired for reasons of survival in the event of siege or natural disasters, was entrusted to Antonio da Sangallo, assisted by Giovanni Battista da Cortona.Its dimensions are impressive: 62 meters deep, it has a diameter of 13.5 meters. All around there are two helical spiral staircases that never meet; the two stairways, made up of 248 steps each, receive light from 72 windows creating a surreal atmosphere.

Lunch in a typical restaurant and in the afternoon proceed to Bolsena lake the fifth in size in Italy located in upper Lazio, on the border with Umbria and Tuscany, in the main caldera of the Vulsinio volcanic complex. We will stop at Montefiascone and historical village famous for the wine Est Est Est that you will taste in a relaxing place overlooking the lake.

Proceed to Rome.

Farewell dinner party … we raise our glasses of wine for a wish and a “Arrivederci” to Italy

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Transfer to Fiumicino Rome airport by your exclusive coach with unforgettable memories.

Meals: Breakfast