Start your experience with a pickup from your Rome hotel or meet your guide in the city center and board your air-conditioned coach. Listen to interesting facts about the Italians’ famous love of food and enjoy the views as you head north into lush, southern Tuscany.
Arrive in Cortona and enjoy a walk through the heart of this walled hill town, which is little changed since medieval times. Admire the ocher-colored houses that line the cobbled lanes and piazzas and listen as your guide recounts its history and recent surge in popularity for featuring in 'Under the Tuscan Sun', American writer Frances Mayes’ tales of life in Tuscany in the 1990s.
Perhaps enjoy some free time to look around the picture-postcard streets independently and maybe visit the 19th-century Cathedral of St Margaret (Basilica di Santa Margherita), perched on the hilltop.
Continue along the banks of Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, and stop for lunch at an authentic farmhouse restaurant. Enjoy a tempting 4-course of regional dishes, washed down with drinks (own expense). Please see the Itinerary for a sample menu.
With your appetite sated, drive through the rolling Chianti countryside to the charming hilltop town of Montepulciano, known for its ruby-red Vino di Nobile and Rosso di Montepulciano wines, produced here since early medieval times. Visit one of the town’s oldest rock-cut wine cellars and hear how the region’s wines are produced as you run your palate by some of the varieties.
After your wine sampling, return to Rome, where your tour ends with a drop-off at your hotel or a choice of points in the center.