Immersion Journeys in Italy, France and Spain
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Why Travel With Us

coccolare

verb [ transitive ] /kokːo’lare/:   to pamper;  to attend to every need

When you travel with Tuscany Tours you receive a special kind of attention.

Here are several reasons why most of our tours are filled by returning travelers:

Our tours almost always have two escorts, so you will receive a lot of personal attention and care.  You'll know ahead of time who your tour escorts will be, and you can know that you will see them again on another Tuscany Tours adventure.

You will also meet many local guides who are ambassadors for their cities and who will share their local knowledge and passion.

We don't try to squeeze your days full of check-list items with long bus rides between them.  What we want is to create experiences that touch you and make you feel as if you have momentarily stepped outside of time.  As if you are living a dream filled with conversations, amazing food, breathtaking scenery and yes, often times, local music...

Sicily local music

Beatrice local music

Puglia local music

Tuscany local music

One of our most important goals is to support small local businesses where warm and generous people take pleasure in sharing food, life and the beauty of their country with you.  Over the course of more than twenty years of traveling and living in Italy and France, we have made an abundance of friends and created an amazing community for our travelers to step into!

On all our tours we try to balance the “must see experiences” (e.g., Michelangelo’s David) with small and intimate experiences.  For example, when you come on our Best of Tuscany Tour, we’ll bring you to our village where you will meet the local tailor.  In his eighties now, he still makes clothes for our village residents.  He also keeps the keys to our village church (16th century) where a splendid painting of the Annunciation awaits you.

As for the art and culture, our approach is not to lecture didactically, but to give you a way to engage with what you see and enhance your experience. Although we agree that man (and woman) can not live by bread alone, we make sure that the pasta, wine and tiramisu are there in abundance to help balance the art.  We jokingly say: “Our tours offer a carefully blended mixture of high culture and debauchery.”

Wine Tasting Room at Brolio Castle
The Hilltowns Gang 2007
Dessert for When You Can't Decide
Morning at the Villa

Yes, all our groups are wonderful!  Our trips tend to attract independent travelers with an openness to experience and a generosity of spirit.  Many of our travelers have never been on a tour before, but learn about us from a friend.  Once introduced to us, they appreciate the advantages of traveling with “insiders,” knowing that hotels, guides, and restaurants will be outstanding, that luggage will always be handled, that they can enjoy food and wine without worrying about driving.  And, perhaps most important, they get to immerse themselves in the richness of the culture, spending time with “the locals” and being introduced to places and experiences that they could never find on their own.  Today, most of our tours are filled by returning travelers, some coming back even for a fourth and fifth trip!

The Best of Tuscany tour was outstanding in every respect and our favorite vacation ever.  The small towns we visited were charming.  The historic hotels were elegant.  The museums, castles and churches were each stunning in their own way.  Sam’s selective, low-key approach brought the most important Renaissance paintings and sculptures to life.  Bathed in sunshine every day, the countryside was amazingly beautiful.  Perhaps best of all were the lunches and dinners we shared.  The food and wine were excellent, the settings beautiful and often family-like.

Hugo & Anna Maria Finarelli – October 2017

What's it like traveling with Tuscany Tours?  Pam, Sam and their local friends weave together a mosaic of experiences that create lasting memories.  In Provence, we were greeted at the Marseilles train station by our driver who inquired if we wanted to take the direct route to St. Remy, or the longer, scenic route through the Luberon hills of southern France.  We made the right choice -- and so began our eight days of new sites, friends, tastes and experiences along the "scenic route."

George & Karen Bergstrom – August 2015

This is my second trip with Tuscany Tours and it was just as spectacular and charming as the first. I went for the history of Sicily and was met with very knowledgeable tour guides and locations, like the Valley of the Temples, that were beyond description. The food and wine were fabulous, and Sam and Federica were great to explain and elaborate on the foods and traditions of Sicily. The final evening meal was served by a precious family restaurant that made us feel like treasured guests in their home. Thanks Sam, Pam, and Federica!

Cindy Gill – October 2017

Immersion Journeys in Italy, France and Spain
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1-800-634-3460

120 Fourth Street, Ste. 1071
Petaluma, CA 94953 USA


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