Spring Favorites

The next months are among the nicest times of year for an Insider’s Italy trip.  Please let us introduce you to some of our favorite seasonal experiences and destinations :

1. When it first reopens for the spring, visit Europe’s best maze, arriving by boat from Venice.  Please ask us for details.

2. We have never seen camelias as beautiful as those near Lucca, where celebrations of the flower occur on March 6 and 7 and again 13 and 14 in the village of Compito.

3. If gardens are your love, come again in April for the Lake Como and Garda gardens where hundreds of varieties of rhododendron and azalea are at their peak late April through June. Then let us introduce you to some of our own special undiscovered favorites, including a Roman little-known paradise that is one of Italy’s most interesting gardens, best in early April to May.

4. Sample at all of our Rome trattoria favorites that most sublime Roman springtime dish vignarola which combines baby peas, artichokes, fresh onions. fava beans and crisp lettuce in the most succulent celebration of springtime Roman flavors.

5. Easter Egg Hunt in Florence’s Boboli Gardens.

6. Wander among natural carpets of flowering crocus and wild flower fields in the Dolomites, Tuscany, Umbria and Marche.  Please ask us for details.

7. We will introduce you to a Slow Food luminary, an Amalfi-based expert on local gastronomy, wines and agricultural tradition.  A week of splendid walks, meals with families celebrating spring ingredients and special hikes, including one of the world’s great on-foot adventures, the Path of the Gods.

8. Low season hotel rates nearly everywhere until at least early April, often until May.