(2 nights – Welcome Dinner Party with wine, Dinner with wine and American Buffet Breakfasts)
Arrival to Napoli airport. Transfer to your historical Spa hotel in the Benevento area and freshen up before your Trip Welcome Meeting and Dinner Party with wine. Benevento (lit. the good wind) was called by the Romans Maleventum (the bad wind) because of the belief that witches and sorcerers inhabited the natural hot springs-rich area—who knows? Will we find out?

Today we are close to Avellino and Benevento. The area is rich in vineyards and olive groves and mountaintop villages from the Middle Ages and is on the slopes of the Apennine mountains, in the center of Italy. There will be opportunity for those who wish to trace their family roots in the area, like Montemiletto, a Middles Ages hilltop village. For everyone else, we will offer an afternoon tour of Benevento and free time for shopping before s visit to a historic local vineyard. This evening we have dinner with wine at our hotel.

(1 night – Dinner with wine and American Buffet Breakfast) After breakfast we travel into the mystical Middle Ages, to Fredrick II’s Castel del Monte. After visiting the site, we continue to Alberobello in the truly enchanted Valle d’Itria. Upon arrival, we have a tour of this unique town. The surviving ‘trulli’, a type of bizarre stone igloo, are popular among English and German tourists and are often bought and restored for personal use. However, anyone wishing to restore a trullo needs to conform to many regulations as the Trulli are protected under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage law. Since the beginning of the century, a large number of trullo houses have been restored and converted into second homes or self-catering cottages. After the tour we will have leisure time for exploring and shopping. In the evening we have a special Pugliese dinner of the typical pasta ‘orecchiette’ with Primitivo wine in a trullo!

(1 night – Dinner with wine and American Buffet Breakfast) After breakfast we travel to Sassi di Matera. The Sassi are ancient cave dwellings in the Italian city of Matera, Basilicata. Scorsese and Coppola have used the Sassi as a dramatic location in their films: the new Ben Hur is being shot in this UNESCO World Heritage site. After lunch and free time we will set off for Calabria. During our afternoon drive we will visit a magnificent orange growing area under the breathtaking Aspromonte Mountains before arriving to Cosenza. After some downtime at our spa hotel, we have a Calabrian Tarantella evening in the old town of Cosenza with music and local Capicollo, and Ciro’ wine.

(3 nights – 3 Dinners with wine and American Buffet Breakfasts) Today we have a mid-morning visit to the magnificent Bronzi di Riace at Reggio Calabria. These 5th century BC bronze statues are among the most important artworks in all of Italy—you will look at the David with different eyes after seeing them. We will then take a ferry to the largest Island of the Mediterranean: Sicily, and on to our hotel in Taormina, rich in Greek, Roman and Middle Ages architecture. Dinner with wine is at our hotel, the dramatically situated Vello D’Oro.

This morning we start with a visit to Europe’s largest volcano: Mount Etna. We will stop at Zafferana for an unforgettable cannolo before starting our climb up into the incredible lunar landscape of Etna’s craters for a stop. Taste the medicinal honey produced on ‘U Mungibeddu’s slopes and have a walk up to the lip of the nearby craters to glance at the earth’s fire energy up close. We will have a little stop at a local goldsmith’s fortified villa: we’ll be visiting “the family”… In the afternoon we continue with a trip to the village of Savoca, where the original The Godfather’s Corleone scenes were actually shot. You can have a cuoffee at Signora Maria’s bar—she was the secret sweetheart of Brando and Pacino during the film’s shooting! Afterwards, we will return to our Taormina hotel for a well-deserved rest and a dinner with wine.

Today is wonderfully relaxing as we have a leisurely orientation tour of Taormina before enjoying free time. You can shop or head to Naxos’ beaches. Tonight we will have a traditional Sicilian Dinner with Nero d’Avola as part of our special cultural evening with the Carmelo Bros., closely related to Mario and Luigi… ‘Amoninni!

(1 night – Dinner with wine and American Buffet Breakfast) After breakfast we head off for the Valley of the Temples and Akragas, passing through Sicily’s grain farmland. Upon our arrival we will have a guided tour of Agrigento with the unique Claudio, resident archeologist with Agrigento’s university and clearly a descendant of the ancient Greeks. We will visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus (or Olympeion; known in Italian as the Tempio di Giove Olimpico), one of the largest Doric temples ever constructed and the incomparable Temple of Concord, one of the best preserved Archaic Greek Temples anywhere. Agrigento’s Valle di Templi was one of the first sites in Italy to be awarded UNESCO World Heritage status. In the evening we will have dinner and a surprise.

After breakfast we have a leisurely departure for Palermo, the capital of Sicily. We will begin our visit of the “Valley of Gold” with the dream of William of Normandy: the Cathedral of Monreale, with its astounding, ton and a half of gold Byzantine mosaics. We will continue into the center of Palermo to admire the Cathedral and the Teatro Massimo—where everybody gets shot in The Godfather part three. Finally we will climb to the Shrine of Santa Rosalia for a blessing before heading to the fishing village of Sferracavallo and one final glorious Sicilian seafood feast, before boarding our overnight ferry cruise to the Italian mainland at Napoli.

(2 nights – Welcome Dinner Party with wine, Dinner with wine and American Buffet Breakfasts) Upon arrival to Napoli we transfer to the Sorrentine peninsula, on the way visiting Ravello, the balcony of the Amalfi Coast. There we will have a passeggiata to Villa Cimbrone, Ernest William Beckett’s Grand Tour of Italy home, where Wagner was inspired to compose the Klingsor Suite of his Parzifal and that today hosts an important international music festival, and free time for lunch. In the afternoon we will arrive to the wonderful Johanna Park, where our last two nights together we will enjoy Signora Giovanna’s great hospitality. In the evening we will have a Seafood Feast with wine.

This morning we will be among the first visitors to the archeological area of Pompeii, where we will have a guided walking tour followed by some free time for racy souvenir shopping. With a short transfer, we will enter the modern town of Pompeii to see and receive a blessing from the miraculous icon of La Madonna di Pompeii… and some time for lunch. From Pompeii we will return to Signora Giovanna’s swimming pool and, after a rest we meet our guide and start our Sorrento City Tour. Interesting Piazza Tasso and free time for shopping and limoncello tasting before we conclude with our Farewell Dinner Bash with wonderful Aglianico wine, live music and Pulcinella at La Tavola di Lucullo restaurant.

Departures After breakfast, departure for Napoli Airport and arrivederci Italy.