Italian Cooking with Mama Margaret
. . . cook, eat, laugh, explore with local people in Italy

In these frenetic times, what really counts in your life? On Mama Margaret tours, you go back to slower, gentler times of long ago. You have time to talk, laugh and share experiences with family and friends. A chance to eat wonderful, real Italian food made from fresh local ingredients. To immerse yourself in the beauty and peace of the countryside. Also a great way to celebrate that special anniversary, which many do.

Through your cooking lessons and visits, you will get to meet and know a long list of local Italian characters on a one to one basis - chefs, wine makers, winery owners, food producers, owners of historic hotels and many more. People you would not normally have the opportunity to meet when travelling in Italy. As you dine with a balsamic vinegar producer or taste wine in a family’s wine cellar with the head of the family you will be made to feel like a real insider. Your week in places tourists never go will make you feel like an Italian.

You join an intimate tour group, all of whom have a common love of good food and wine . . . and Italy of course! Everyone has lots in common right from the start and in such a small group you get to know each other quickly and easily. You will very quickly be laughing together as you travel with new found friends.

Mama Margaret together with her good Italian friends, Elio, Raffaella, Marcello and Lara are small tour operators specialising in food and wine adventures in Italy. Being small and personal means you get high quality, one to one service from people who really know and care. The team members are experts with big hearts who bend over backwards to take care of you making your stay in Italy a dream come true . . . at the end of their stay some people cry when they have to leave.

In your small cooking tour group of between two to eight people, you will bask in all kinds of personal attention from Elio, Elio's guides, Marcello, Raffaella and Lara and her guides. The whole team enjoys kidding around, telling silly stories, and laughing at little things . . . and they love good Italian food and wines too. You'll have lots of fun!

Unlike many other tours, with Mama Margaret you cook at different restaurants and homes with a variety of different chefs. In this way you learn a variety of techniques, meet lots of people, experience a variety of kitchens, big and small, and enjoy dining in a wide choice of good places. Cooking lessons are mostly hands-on with some demonstrations so you watch the expert . . . then try yourself!

You will stay in historic hotels in pretty little Italian towns. Relax, enjoy the peace and quiet and the country views provided by such high quality, picturesque accommodation. When not relaxing in your hotel, cooking or on a visit you might enjoy taking a stroll around the town town to shop or hanging out in the piazza and watching life go by.

For those who enjoy walking, and want to, many tours provide the opportunity for you to enjoy walks down through vineyards or along scenic country roads and paths - usually of about an hour to an hour and a half's duration. Great for peace and tranquility . . . and it helps control the weight!

Mama Margaret and her team are flexible in catering to your needs and interests. If you want to walk or shop more or less, just tell them and they can change the plan of the day for you. If you don’t feel like cooking, just hang out in the kitchen with a glass of wine, or explore on your own and dine with everyone later. You are being looked after by knowledgeable, flexible experts who listen to what you want and can translate it into a fabulous, fun filled, Italian experience.

	Mama Margaret & Friends    . . . cooking, wine and walking tours of Italy

	Cooking and Wine Lovers Adventure Tour - 6 nights: Tuscany's Brunello and Vino Nobile Wine Country at historic hotel

COOKING TOUR AT A GLANCE : BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Where? About one hour south of Siena, you'll explore the lovely hill towns of Montalcino, Pienza and Montepulciano. As you stroll along narrow streets or quiet country roads, the vast, dramatic vistas of rolling hills - velvety green, gold or brown fields, with olive trees, hay and vineyards - will make you feel peaceful. Walks are optional, up to you.

You'll enjoy getting to know a long list of Tuscans in their kitchens, on their farms, in their wine cellars - people you'd never meet otherwise in places you'd never have found on your own. You'll feel Italian for a week, immersed in genuine local life.

Lovely countryside and medieval walled hill towns

You'll also visit an idyllic Tuscan valley and Sant'Antimo, one of Italy's most beautiful Romanesque churches, that turns gold inside and out when the sun hits. It stands on flat land where two hillsides meet in a classic Tuscan landscape - a patchwork quilt of olive groves, combed fields in rich brown or gold, vineyards and dark green forests, with cypresses zigzagging up country roads. Sit down on the grass, immerse yourself in all the beauty and get really peaceful inside.

You'll also explore Siena for day on a guided visit of art and architecture treasures and a free afternoon to shop and or just sit in a piazza watching local life.

In the medieval hilltown of Montalcino, Italy, famous for Brunello wine, you can stroll the narrow streets, stop at Italian wine, honey and gastronomy stores, or outdoor cafes, or sip some Brunello at the medieval fortress, now an enoteca. Fabulous 360 degree views!

Pienza, Italy sits on a hill with sweeping views over the vast Val d'Orcia with undulating fields dotted with olive groves and farmhouses leading up to Monte Amiata. A sunny walkway with marvellous panoramas takes you along one side of town past the Street of Fortune, Street of Kisses. Pienza is famous for its pecorino cheese.

The larger hilltown of Montepulciano, Italy is renowned for its Vino Nobile di Montepulciano wine. Its narrow streets and beautiful piazzas are lined with distinguished Italian Renaissance palazzos, wine cellars with 13th century grottoes, gastronomy shops, cafes and wine stores. From several lookout points, you can admire fantastic panoramas all around.

Cooking lessons with restaurant chefs and great home cooks in their kitchens:
learn lots of cooking secrets and experience a variety of cooking styles and kitchens

In your four cooking lessons, you'll learn four Italian chefs' secrets cooking right beside them in their restaurant kitchens or country homes. Cook with our two friendly, creative, hospitable restaurant chefs who own a well known restaurant in a mountain hamlet, and an elegant restaurant featuring Tuscan dishes with a creative flair in the heart of medieval Montepulciano.

Cook with the very knowledgeable, creative, charming Chef Roberto who was born in the mountains and owns a restaurant famous for mushroom dishes in a mountain hamlet. Roberto is passionate about bringing back traditional Tuscan dishes with little modern touches - porcini mushroom soup, local pici pasta with ragu, slices of grilled beef with arugola, wild boar with olives or chocolate (!), pears stuffed with lemon custard with chocolate sauce on top. Mmmm...! A feast for your tastebuds!

Cook easy, tasty Tuscan dishes from the past with friendly Alberto, a former restaurant owner, at his organic farm where he also makes olive oil the traditional way using a granite wheel. Enjoy lunch in his olive oil production room as he tells you everything you ever wanted to know about making and buying olive oil.

Cook with exuberant Sandra on her family's farm on a beautiful ridge between two valleys, where she and husband, Ulisses make pecorino cheese with their five children, raise animals, including a special striped pig, and export their pasta. Local school groups come to visit them to see how their ancestors made pecorino cheese.

In the medieval heart of Montepulciano cook with the chef in an elegant restaurant where beautifully presented dishes have a creative flair, and enjoy the friendly hospitality of the owner, Massimo.

You dine later on your creations accompanied by fine Tuscan wines in restaurants and good table wines in homes. What a variety of people, kitchens, homes, restaurants, cooking methods, food and wine to experience! You'll feel Italian with your new friends!

Taste Brunello and Vino Nobile wines at wineries and wine cellars . . . with the owners

In the Brunello wine country in Montalcino, you visit a wine bar in a medieval fortress for a private introduction to Brunello and tour a Brunello winery in the country with the very hospitable owner who lives with his family there. He tastes his Brunello and rosso di Montalcino with you.

In the Vino Nobile wine country in Montepulciano, with the owner you visit a wine cellar in a 14th century palazzo with panoramic terrace in a pristine, pretty hill town of Montefollonico and a wine cellar grotto and shop in the medieval heart of Montepulciano. Taste his great Vino Nobile, rosso di Montepulciano, Vin Santo.

Lovely Historic Hotel

La Vecchia Oliviera, a former olive oil mill, now beautifully renovated, is perched high up at the gates of Montalcino. Rooms are tastefully furnished in a casually elegant Tuscan style with rustic wood beams. By the pool or in the garden, you'll love dramatic panoramas looking north to velvety hills, vineyards and olive groves. A short walk takes you to the heart of the historic centre. For a wonderful picture gallery of the hotel, its rooms, views and property, please see their web site at www.vecchiaoliviera.com

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Cooking and Spa Lovers Adventure: Villa in Tuscany's Brunello & Vino Nobile Wine Country

COOKING TOUR AT A GLANCE : BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Imagine escaping to Tuscany, pampering yourself . . .

You wake up in your room in a Sixteenth century Tuscan villa in the country surrounded by gardens and olive trees, and open your windows. You gaze at a magnificent valley of gentle patchwork hills of olive trees, vineyards, golden grain and green forests. So peaceful and beautiful, soothing and reviving your soul!

After breakfast in the garden, you head to the spa for a morning of pampering: facial, massage, mud bath and more. The choice is up to you! You'll float out, feel like a new person!

In the afternoons after a dip in the swimming pool, a private visit to a winery, country walk or just relaxing, you discover chefs' secrets in cooking lessons in their restaurant and farm home kitchens. You dine on all your creations with some of Italy's best wines.

You enjoy genuine, local, fresh food, slow down and enjoy life's simple pleasures, meet a lots of local characters you'd never meet otherwise and impress all your friends back home! You feel Italian for a week!

Indulge in Spa Pampering

At the modern, professional Terme di Montepulciano nearby, (www.termemontepulciano.it) you'll unwind in three mornings of total pampering. Choose your spa experiences from a long menu: mud masks, smoothing rejuvenating treatment, hydromassage, massages shiatsu, rebalancing, ayurveda or manual styles, mud bath, reflexology and more. You'll float out! You'll emerge feeling like a new person! AAHHHH!

Discover Beautiful Medival Hill Towns & Countryside

In the medieval hilltown of Montalcino, Italy, famous for Brunello wine, you can stroll the narrow streets, stop at Italian wine, honey and gastronomy stores, or outdoor cafes, or sip some Brunello at the medieval fortress, now an enoteca. Fabulous 360 degree views!

Pienza, Italy sits on a hill with sweeping views over the vast Val d'Orcia with undulating fields dotted with olive groves and farmhouses leading up to Monte Amiata. A sunny walkway with marvellous panoramas takes you along one side of town past the Street of Fortune, Street of Kisses. Pienza is famous for its pecorino cheese.

The larger hilltown of Montepulciano, Italy is renowned for its Vino Nobile di Montepulciano wine. Its narrow streets and beautiful piazzas are lined with distinguished Italian Renaissance palazzos, wine cellars with 13th century grottoes, gastronomy shops, cafes and wine stores. From several lookout points, you can admire fantastic panoramas all around.

Cooking lessons with restaurant chefs and great home cooks in their kitchens:
learn lots of cooking secrets and experience a variety of cooking styles and kitchens

Your four Italian cooking lessons take place in restaurants and homes close to your villa so you spend less time on the road and more time relaxing. You'll learn chefs' secrets cooking right beside them in their restaurant and home kitchens. Dishes like: grilled eggplant, local pici pasta with a savory garlic & tomato sauce, chestnut linguine with ricotta cheese, roast lamb with rosemary and garlic, Florentine arista (pork with rosemary, fennel, sage, rosemary).

Your friendly, hospitable cooking teachers are restaurant owner Patrizia in a peaceful hill town, a mother on a farm where they make cheese, a great home cook at your villa, and an artisan olive oil producer and ex restaurant owner at his country, organic B & B. A great variety of Italian people to meet and cook with! You dine later on your creations accompanied by fine Tuscan wines.

Olive Oil Visit: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Olives and Oil

After your cooking lesson with olive oil producer, Alberto, you dine on your creations in the room where he makes his olive oil. He explains how he makes the oil using the traditional granite wheel and answers all your questions about olive oil and olives so you know how to pick a good oil.

Taste Some of Italy's Top Red Wines

In the Brunello wine country near Montalcino, you'll drink Brunello, one of Italy's top red wines, and Rosso di Montalcino. In the Vino Nobile country near Montepulciano, you'll sample a great red wine, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Rosso di Montepulciano, and Vin Santo.

Stay in a Lovely Historic Villa

A lovely four star villa with 10 rooms, dating back to the Middle Ages owned by noble families. This beautifully restored home is professionally decorated in period style with some antique furniture, some frescoes, and many refined touches in all the rooms. It sits about two km outside Montepulciano with spectacular views across the valley - hills of vineyards, olive trees, golden grain fields and forests. The house is set among pretty gardens and olive trees which extend out around the swimming pool, jacuzzi and patios which have great panoramas. You can also enjoy a little chapel, a quiet reading room, the wine cellar and restaurant.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Cooking and Wine Lovers Little Indulgence Tour - 4 nights: Southern Tuscany's Brunello Wine Country in Italy at historic hotel

COOKING TOUR AT A GLANCE : BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Escape to the magnificent wine country around medieval, walled hill towns of Montalcino, Pienza & Montepulciano so you immerse yourself in beauty and peace, fine wines and local dishes made of fresh ingredients.

Enjoy four cooking lessons - two in restaurants & two in farm homes, two Brunello wine visits, two Vino Nobile wine visits, olive oil visit with artisan producer. Stay in historic hotels or pleasant pensione.

You get immersed in genuine Italian life! What a variety of local characters, kitchens, homes, restaurants, cooking methods, food and wine to experience! You'll feel like an Italian!

Lovely Countryside and Medieval Walled Towns

In the medieval, walled hill town of Montalcino, Italy, famous for one of Italy's top red wines - Brunello, you stroll the narrow streets, stop at wine, honey and gastronomy stores, or outdoor cafes, or sip some Brunello at the medieval fortress, now a wine bar and shop. Fabulous 360 degree views of a vast valley of vineyards, olive trees and golden or green fields! On a clear day you can see all the way to Siena.

Pienza, Italy, a dear, little walled town, sits on a hill with sweeping views over the vast Val d'Orcia with undulating fields dotted with olive groves and farmhouses leading up to Monte Amiata. On top of the medieval walls, you can stroll along a sunny walkway along one side of town past the Street of Fortune, Street of Kisses, Street of Love. Pienza is famous for its pecorino cheese - fresh, aged, with hot peppers, with truffles, aged in ashes or vine leaves and many more!

The larger hilltown of Montepulciano, Italy is renowned for its Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Its narrow streets and beautiful piazzas are lined with distinguished Italian Renaissance palazzos, wine cellars with 13th century grottoes, gastronomy shops, cafes and wine stores. From several lookout points, you can admire fantastic panoramas across the valley of rolling hills quilted in vineyards, olive trees, and fields of gold, green or brown.

Cooking lessons with restaurant chefs and great home cooks in their kitchens:
learn lots of cooking secrets and experience a variety of cooking styles and kitchens

In your 4 cooking lessons, you'll learn chefs' secrets cooking right beside them in their restaurant kitchens or country homes. Cook with our two friendly, creative, hospitable restaurant chefs who own a well known restaurant in a mountain hamlet, and a great restaurant in small medieval hill town south of Montalcino.

For example, you cook with very knowledgeable, creative, charming Chef Roberto, born in the mountains nearby and owner of a restaurant famous for mushroom dishes. People drive for miles to dine there.

Roberto is passionate about bringing back traditional Tuscan dishes with little modern touches - porcini mushroom soup, local pici pasta with ragu, slices of grilled beef with arugola, wild boar with olives or chocolate (!), pears stuffed with lemon custard with chocolate sauce on top. Mmmm...! A feast for your tastebuds!

At a picturesque stone restaurant on the piazza in a hilltop village south of Montalcino, you cook wonderful, traditional Tuscan dishes with friendly and very hospitable owner, Gianni.

Cook easy, tasty Tuscan dishes from the past with enthusiastic Alberto, a former restaurant owner, at his organic farm where he also makes olive oil the traditional way using a granite wheel. Enjoy lunch in his olive oil production room as he tells you everything you ever wanted to know about making and buying olive oil.

Cook with exuberant Sandra on her family's farm on a beautiful ridge between two valleys, where she and husband, Ulisses make pecorino cheese with their five children, raise animals, including a special striped pig, and export their pasta. Local school groups come to visit them to see how their ancestors made pecorino cheese.

You dine later on your creations accompanied by fine Tuscan wines in restaurants and good table wines in homes. What a variety of people, kitchens, homes, restaurants, cooking methods, food and wine to experience! You'll feel Italian with your new friends!

Taste Brunello and Vino Nobile wines at wineries and wine cellars . . . with the owners

In the Brunello wine country in Montalcino, you visit a wine bar in a medieval fortress for an introduction to Brunello and tour a Brunello winery in the country with the very hospitable owner who lives with his family there. He tastes his Brunello and rosso di Montalcino with you.

In the Vino Nobile wine country in Montepulciano, you visit a wine cellar in a 14th century palazzo with panoramic terrace in a pristine, pretty hill town nearby and a wine cellar grotto and shop in the medieval heart of Montepulciano. Taste Vino Nobile, rosso di Montepulciano, Vin Santo with the owners.

Lovely Historic Hotels

La Vecchia Oliviera, a former olive oil mill, now beautifully renovated, is perched high up at the gates of Montalcino. Rooms are tastefully furnished in a casually elegant Tuscan style with rustic wood beams. By the pool or in the garden, you'll love dramatic panoramas looking north to velvety hills, vineyards and olive groves. A short walk takes you to the heart of the historic centre. For a wonderful picture gallery of the hotel, its rooms, views and property, please see their web site at www.vecchiaoliviera.com

Il Chiostro, a former Fifteenth century convent, is a Relais Chateau hotel in Pienza's historic centre. You can relax in the quiet gardens or in the swimming pool as you gaze at wonderful views of Val d'Orcia, the valley sweeping up to Monte Amiata. Rooms feature modern bathrooms, tasteful country style furniture, vaulted ceilings and some have frescoes.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Cooking, Wine and Walking Extravaganza Tour: Piedmont's Barolo Wine Country, Cinque Terre and Tuscany's Brunello Wine Country

"I've been travelling to Italy at least once a year since 1980. I've always enjoyed my trips to Italy immensely, however, Mama Margaret & Friends Cooking Adventures in Italy was exceptional . . . just too good. So good I fear all my future trips to Italy will pale in comparison." ~ Sandra Cozzo

You'll meet an incredible variety of local Italian people that you'd never meet otherwise, in lots of restaurants, homes, wine cellars - some where other tourists never go. Genuine Italian experiences with your new Italian friends.

Discover new Italian dishes and chefs' secrets in 5 cooking lessons with 5 great chefs in their restaurant kitchens and dine on your creations with fine local wines in Piedmont, Portovenere near Cinque Terre and Southern Tuscany hilltowns near Montalcino in Italy. Three incredibly varied and different Italian cuisines!

Visit Barolo and Barbaresco wineries in Piedmont, and Brunello and Vino Nobile wineries in Tuscany, and expand your Italian wine repertoire as you drink a wonderful variety of top wines at meals in Italy.

Enjoy guided hilltown strolls to learn about local Italian history and culture and optional country walks in Piedmont's series of gentle, vineyard covered hills topped with medieval castles, with views of the Alps on a clear day, then along the dramatically beautiful Cinque Terre paths clinging to cliffs falling to the azure sea, and along Tuscan country roads with lovely, vast panoramas of hills of olive trees, grain, and vineyards. Three sets of magnificent scenery in three regions in Italy!

You'll stay in historic hotels like Real Castello in Verduno - the former summer home of Italian King Carlo Alberto in the 1840's, the Grand Hotel Portovenere, a four star ex-convent right on the sea, and Il Chiostro, a Relais Chateau hotel and ex-convent with valley views in Pienza or Vecchia Oliviera, a beautifully renovated olive oil mill in Montalcino, Italy.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

	Cooking and Wine Lovers Adventure Tour - 6 nights: Piedmont's Barolo Wine Country in Italy

COOKING TOUR AT A GLANCE : BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The Magnificent Barolo and Barbaresco Wine Country: beauty, great cuisine, wines and people

Renowned for some of Italy's best red wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, and for its outstanding gastronomy, this small area is about 70 km. or 30 miles in hills south of Turin in the Piedmont region.

In your minivan and on your strolls and optional hikes with your local Italian guides, you'll explore nine hilltowns, many crowned with castles, and enjoy the beauty and peace of paths in vineyards.

You'll feel the tranquillity seep into you in this peaceful countryside. You'll stand in awe admiring panoramas in a poetic landscape of series of gentle, green quilted hills and valleys covered with vineyards, fields and forests. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Italian Alps.

Italian Cooking Lessons and Cuisine: a wonderful variety of people, places and tastes to experience!

During your six day cooking and wine adventure in Piedmont, Italy, you'll cook with local chefs in their kitchens in four top restaurants in different towns in the Barolo and Barbaresco wine country. You'll savour an amazing array of regional dishes in fine Italian restaurants and at winery lunches paired with a variety of wines: Barbera, Barbaresco, Barolo and more.

Italian dishes like:

• a red pepper flan with fonduta sauce
• risotto pink with Barolo wine
• thin delicate yellow tajarin pasta covered with truffle shavings
• baked guinea hen with rosemary
• a hazelnut and chocolate cake with Moscato wine zabaglione
• semi-freddo of hazelnut torrone candy

Lots of Barolo & Barbaresco Wineries to Discover Big and Small: meet some of the owners

You'll enjoy exclusive tours of the Ratti family historic wine museum and Barolo and Barbaresco wineries often with the owners, from historic to modern, from big to small, from famous to undiscovered, from traditional style to international style wines. A wide range of wineries for you to experience! You'll love all the banter with our warm and friendly cast of characters!

You get to know a vast array of local characters you'd never meet otherwise: small family restaurant owners to a chef presiding over many kitchens, local Barolo wine celebrities to philosophical father winery owners, a self sufficient farm family with 6 children, and my dear friend and local colleague, Elio, born in the area. You'll feel like your local friend is taking you to see his favourite people and places! You'll feel Italian for a week!

Fully Guided Tour: Historic Hotel

If you'd like to sit back and let your guide take care of you and all the details, our fully guided tour is for you.

You may stay at the historic Hotel Real Castello in Verduno where you feel you're going back in time to a slower, country way of life, or in another historic hotel. The Real Castello was the summer home of Italian King Carlo Alberto in the 1850's, and has country style rooms with traditional looking decor (no phone, no TV), frescoed dining rooms, quiet garden, a down to earth feel and views of the Italian Alps on a clear day. A wonderful refuge for you and very friendly service from the family owners.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Cooking and Wine Lovers Adventure Tour: Piedmont's Barolo Wine Country in Italy - SHORT TOUR

Tour at a Glance: Brief Description

The Magnificent Barolo & Barbaresco Wine Country: beauty, great cuisine, wines & people

Renowned for some of Italy's best red wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, and for its outstanding gastronomy, this small area is about 70 km. or 30 miles in hills south of Turin in the Piedmont region.

In your minivan and on your strolls and optional hikes with your local Italian guides, you'll explore nine hilltowns, many crowned with castles, and enjoy the beauty and peace of paths in vineyards.

You'll feel the tranquillity seep into you in this peaceful countryside. You'll stand in awe admiring panoramas in a poetic landscape of series of gentle, green quilted hills and valleys covered with vineyards, fields and forests. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Italian Alps.

Italian Cooking Lessons and Cuisine: a wonderful variety of people, places and tastes to experience!

During your four day cooking and wine adventure in Piedmont, Italy, you'll cook with local chefs in their kitchens in two top restaurants in the Barolo and Barbaresco wine areas. You'll savour an amazing array of regional dishes in fine Italian restaurants and at winery lunches paired with a variety of wines: Barbera, Barbaresco, Barolo and more.

Italian dishes like:

• a red pepper flan with fonduta sauce
• risotto pink with Barolo wine
  
• thin delicate yellow tajarin pasta covered with truffle shavings
  
• baked guinea hen with rosemary
  
• a hazelnut and chocolate cake with Moscato wine zabaglione
  
• semi-freddo of hazelnut torrone candy

Lots of Barolo & Barbaresco Wineries to Discover Big and Small: meet some of the owners

You'll enjoy exclusive tours of the Ratti family historic wine museum and Barolo and Barbaresco wineries often with the owners, from historic to modern, from big to small, from famous to undiscovered, from traditional style to international style wines. A wide range of wineries for you to experience! You'll love all the banter with our warm and friendly cast of characters!

You get to know a vast array of local characters you'd never meet otherwise: small family restaurant owners to local Barolo wine celebrities to philosophical father winery owners, a self sufficient farm family with 6 children, and my dear friend and local colleague, Elio, born in the area. You'll feel like your local friend is taking you to see his favourite people and places! You'll feel Italian for a week!

Fully Guided Tour: Rooms with views in the heart of the Barolo wine country

You'll stay at a three star hotel in the town of Barolo, owned and run by a warm, hospitable, local Brezza family of wine producers. The modern rooms are pretty and tastefully furnished with all the amenities. Many rooms have views of the vineyards and Barolo castle right in the town. On a hot day, you can lounge on the patio around the swimming pool and gaze at the vineyards.

You'll also enjoy dining at the Brezza family's restaurant, steps from your room, well known throughout the area for its wonderful food, especially traditional Piedmontese plates like Brasato al Barolo. Downstairs you can also visit their wine cellars and sit around a long wooden table lit by candles and taste their Barolo wines.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Wine Lovers Adventure Tour: Piedmont's Barolo Wine Country in Italy - 8 wineries in 4 days

TOUR AT A GLANCE : BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Renowned for some of Italy's best red wines, Barolo and Barbaresco, and for its outstanding gastronomy, this small area is about 70 km. or 30 miles in hills south of Turin in the Piedmont region.

Drink Wines with Eight Producers

On your pre-arranged itinerary, you visit eight Barolo and Barbaresco wineries , from small family operations to large producers, from traditional to modern philosophies, from famous to undiscovered, in a variety of town and country settings.

If you want to visit certain wineries, please let us know and we'll try our best to arrange visits at your favourite wine producers.

You get to know the producers personally as you taste a wonderful hierarchy of red wines from the fruity, young Dolcetto, to full bodied Barbera or Nebbiolo, to robust Barolo and elegant Barbaresco. You'll love all the banter with our warm and friendly cast of wine characters!

Discover the wine country with your guide

Discover this beautiful wine country with our local guide accompanying throughout so you just relax and enjoy, enjoy.

On your scenic drives and walks, you'll discover Barolo and Barbaresco area hill towns, many crowned with castles...and adorned with enotecas (wine bars). You'll feel the tranquillity seep into you in this peaceful countryside. You'll stand in awe admiring panoramas in a poetic landscape of series of gentle, green quilted hills and valleys covered with vineyards, fields and forests. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Italian Alps.

Two lovely hotels to choose from

1. A historic hotel, the former summer home of King Carlo Alberto in the 1840's where he took refuge from all the wars and chaos of the time in hispeaceful gardens and vineyards. The hotel has a wing dating from the 15th century where you climb 71 steps up to country style rooms with great views of the Alps on a clear day, and a modern wing with larger rooms and garden views .A down to earth atmosphere with tasteful and genuine country decor (not decor magazine style). The rooms in the older wing have no TV, no phone. Outstanding, internationally known restaurant. The family owns a winery with cellars on the property.

2. Beautiful 4 star villa hotel in a Barolo wine town with lovely decor, nice garden, air conditioning and swimming pool. Some rooms have great views over the town and wine country, others no. We know which ones to ask for.

Italian Cuisine in Piedmont: A wonderful blend of French and country influences, a savoury, yet delicate cuisine

During your four day wine adventure, you may enjoy dishes like

• a red pepper flan with fonduta sauce
• risotto pink with Barolo wine
• thin delicate yellow tajarin pasta covered with truffle shavings
• baked guinea hen with rosemary
• a hazelnut and chocolate cake with Moscato wine zabaglione
• semi-freddo of hazelnut torrone candy

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here

Food Lovers Adventure in Italy's Gastronomic Paradise: the Countryside Around Bologna - 4 and 6 days

Food Lovers Adventure Tour

With Marcello and Raffaella, you'll feel like an Italian for a week, like your local Italian friends are taking you to their favourite places and people . . . many where other tourists never go! A genuine, Italian experience full of good friends around tables and simple joys of life.

Italy's Gastronomic Paradise

Bologna, Italy, is about half way between Florence and Venice and in the middle of Emilia-Romagna. This Italian region of pretty hills, valleys, and plains is renowned throughout the world as Italy's gastronomic paradise: tortellini and other pastas, Parmesan cheese, traditional balsamic vinegar and prosciutto and more recently a light olive oil and a variety of good wines.

You'll visit balsamic vinegar and parmesan producers to see first hand where and how these famous Italian food products are made. Refine your tastebuds as you taste everything fresh right on the spot!

Cook with a Wonderful Variety of Italian Restaurant Chefs & Great Home Cooks

You'll enjoy three Italian cooking lessons on many kinds of pasta, piadina (local thin pancake with fillings), herb dishes, desserts and more with a local chef in Bologna, Italy, at a country home with an pasta making expert, and with the chef and owner of a hill town restaurant famous for its dishes with herbs.

Enjoy Outstanding Italian Cuisine

From tortellini in good meat broth, tortelli stuffed with squash flavoured with amaretto biscuits, to garganelli pasta with arugola and prosciutto, to classic Bolognese meat ragu, to Robespierre steak smothered in fresh herbs, to ice cream with drizzles of 25 year old balsamic vinegar, to pannacotta with wild forest fruit sauce. And of course, melt in your mouth prosciutto, and wonderful young and aged parmesan.

Your gala Italian farewell dinner takes place in the elegant San Domenico restaurant in Imola, Italy, rated in guides as one of Europe's top restaurants. An incredible variety of delicious plates for you to savour!

Explore Bologna and Market

You meet Marcello in the historic centre of Bologna, Italy, for a market tour of the maze of street stalls and heavenly Italian gastronomic shops, stuffed to the ceilings, with beautiful food displays - a paradise for foodies and photographers! A food gift shopper's dream come true!

Admire Byzantine Architecture and Art

In Ravenna, Italy, on the Adriatic with our informative local guide, you'll stroll through Ravenna's world famous Byzantine churches and gaze in awe at the glittering mosaics covering walls and ceilings.

Four Star Hotel in Bologna's Medieval Centre

Stay at this four star historic hotel only minutes away from the main square and historic centre in Bologna. This hotel is over six hundred years old and is believed to be one of the oldest hotels in Bologna. You can unwind in your tastefully decorated room with private bathroom, bathtub, shower, colour TV, mini-bar and direct dial phone. You can enjoy leisurely strolls along pleasant streets with cafes, shops and promenades, or just hang out as you sip a cappuccino and watch local Italian life go by.

Your charming historic Hotel in Riolo Terme

Cinzia and Domenico welcome you to their quiet, charming, three star Liberty style hotel in Riolo Terme, Italy, a town in the pretty hills east of Bologna. You can unwind in your tastefully decorated room with private bathroom, bathtub, shower, safe, colour TV, mini-bar and direct dial phone. You can enjoy leisurely strolls along pleasant streets with cafes, shops and promenades, or just hang out as you sip a cappuccino and watch local Italian life go by.

For further information and the itinerary see the Mama Margaret web site - click here