Matteo,
Yes, we are back in the US and safely reunited with our luggage!
We thought you and your extended team did a really nice job. We loved the hotels, restaurants and tours. It was of course frustrating to miss a day in Florence but that was all on Lufthansa — no fault of your team.
Your guide leaders were all consistently good. As a family my teens would grow tired of the tours before you guides were quite done, but in every instance I gave them a hint they wrapped things up in a timely manner.
As you know, we had an issue with one of the wineries/tastings but otherwise that experience was good as well (with a initial start to the tasting day at the wrong winery).
The highlight — without a doubt was the hot air balloon ride. The experience of floating over Tuscany, dropping above and below the morning fog, was just amazing. And everyone really liked the Vespa tour in Rome as well!
Our favorite hotel was Castello Di Spaltenna. The hotel itself, the pool, the location just above town — it was just terrific!
If you get other real wine lovers in the future, my suggestion would be dig a little deeper with them in terms of what they are hoping to taste. All the wineries we visited were beautiful — and had a couple of really good wines. But we frankly had to taste a lot of lower end stuff before we got to taste the good stuff. In hindsight, I wish I had specified that we focus on high end Brunellos — and realized I needed to say we were interested in tasting red wines beginning roughly has the $50 price point. I think you would have booked us some different stops (with some likely closer to Siena)
Overall a terrific experience. A couple photos for the balloon ride attached.
Best,
Michael & Sara Busselen (Danville – CA) – June/July 2022
