Come with us to learn, experience, and live like an Italian!

Our last trip was October 20-27, 2018, to Parma, Italy.

Stay tuned for information on our trip in 2019

Our seven-day food, music, and culture tours take us a little off the tourist path. We stay in beautiful villas and visit olive oil producers and great wineries. I give cooking classes, and my partner, John Murelle, lectures on the music we see that evening. In the past we visited Umbria, went on a truffle hunt, and had an unbelievable lunch, with everything truffle. Another time we headed to Reggio Emilia, Modena, for balsamic vinegar and to Parma for opera. Our latest trip took us to the beautiful walled city of Lucca, the birthplace of one of the world’s most beloved opera composers, Giacomo Puccini, who wrote La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, and Tosca. We lunched in outdoor trattorias and restaurants and visited the famous Carrara quarries. We enjoyed cooking classes, toured Lucca, road bikes, and attended evening musical events. I showed our group how to live the Italian lifestyle for a week.

I spend a month at a time in Northern Italy. My grandparents were from Renazzo, a small town outside Bologna. I love researching my family roots and studying the language, history, culture, and food. A few years ago, after years of hard work and much frustration, I was granted Italian citizenship. During the process people asked, “But why do you want it?” My answer?
Our next seven-day trip, in 2018, will be to Parma, Italy, the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region, known for its architecture, culinary traditions, and great food. That seems enough of a reason for dual-citizenship.

“The food of Italy is simple, direct, honest, and straightforward. It is not subtle or elusive but full of flavors that declare themselves at the first taste: rich green olive oil, pungent herbs like rosemary and sage, the full-bodied flavors of sheep’s milk cheeses, of game and wild mushrooms roasted over embers of a hardwood fire.”

— Nancy Harmon Jenkins, author of Flavors of Tuscany

I shot this video in a restaurant in Italy.
It’s neat to hear the conversations!

Here are a few images I shot in Italy.
So much to learn and experience!

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