October Truffle Festival
Check into your hotel in Bologna’s Historic Center. Late afternoon Insider’s Walking Tour. Learn about Bolognese daily life and customs, shopping, museums and nightlife so you enjoy your stay in great Italian style. Hearty Welcome Dinner at the best traditional restaurant enjoying Bolognesi signature dishes.
October is an exciting time in our colorful market, shopping for ingredients for our class. Visit the best stores for Italian cookware and tabletop, too. Onto our palazzo and cooking in our working restaurant kitchen with Italian chefs...Ready to learn superb dishes that are guaranteed to win you applause?
Exclusive pasta class with our professional sfoglina. Rolling-out by hand with a traditional matterello making sheet pasta and different cuts, and tips for properly drying pasta are included. We’ll make classic Ragu alla Bolognese for our primo piatto.
Indulge in Our Famous Truffle Tasting of fresh Italian truffles and truffle products. Together with the chefs, make great dishes for our food-and-wine pairing luncheon. Evening at leisure.
Incredible treats await ~ Exclusively for us ~ Made only in Emilia-Romagna. We’ll see the fascinating production of Parmigiano-Reggiano, how it is traditionally aged for years and taste with the award-winning casaro.
A rare opportunity, we’ll meet with one of the few traditional artisan makers of Culatello di Zibello DOP, for a lesson on how it made and aged for one year. Prized for its superior flavor and silken texture, culatello is the “filetto” of prosciutto. (Documents dating to the 1700's state how prestigious it is, costing more than prosciutto. Farmers used to trade two culatellos for one whole pig!) Of course, we must taste, so we’ll lunch in the villa and savor every bite of his homemade salumi, breads and wines. Onto Alba, Italy’s premier White Truffle Capital, with the evening free to explore this delightful-and-delicious town.
"I have made several of the recipes and they have all been wonderful."
~ Penny B., Florida
"While it is said 'A day without wine is like a day without sunshine', we certainly had the wine but you were the sunshine. Grazie tanto."
~ Don & Katherine R., Massachusetts
Private tour of the cellars and tasting at an award-winning winery of elegant and classic Piemontese cru. Shop in Alba’s amazing enoteche and gastronomy shops celebrating Alba’s International White Truffle Fair.
Exclusive Demonstration Class and Dinner with a renowned Michelin-star chef. Learn signature dishes that made her famous. Dinner is prepared just for us pairing traditional Piemontese specialties with exceptional wines.
It's truffle hunting time! You’ll go on an exclusive woodland hunt, on private grounds, with our expert trifolau and his dogs, stalking that elusive treasure! Memorable....
Onto Torino - if you like chocolate you’ve just arrived in heaven! Famous as the chocolate center of Italy, this city is filled with boutique shops enticing us with hand-shaped chocolates, pastries, biscotti, sauces and one of the most decadent hot chocolate drinks you’ll ever taste! Visit the exquisite 17th-century Palazzo Reale, see the Shroud of Turin and UNESCO’s World Heritage site, the residences of the House of Savoy. Evening at your leisure.
We’ll attend Slow Food's Il Salone Internazionale del Gusto, part of Terra Madre. You'll stroll along aisles and aisles of savory and sweet food, tasting and meeting producers, farmers, breeders, fishermen and cooks from many nations. Only those who maintain standards of good, clean food and fair trade practices are invited to this event, so quality is assured. Meet culinary artisans who are passionate about their culture and food, taste their specialties and get to know them - it really is a wonderful world.
Our Grand Finale Dinner is a luxurious experience. Cosseted with the restaurant’s attentive service complementing great food, it is a memorable food-and-wine pairing celebration of Piedmont!
Torino’s outdoor market is the largest in Europe, and offers almost everything you could want in fresh produce, fish, meats, cheeses, spices, olives, breads, kitchen utensils, household items, clothing...even luggage for all the things you’re going to buy here. You’ll meet people from all over Italy and Europe, it’s utterly fascinating and what bargains!
Drive to Milan. Remainder of your time in Milan for browsing trendy fashion shops on Via Monte Napoleone, visiting La Galleria and Milan’s magnificent Duomo.
