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Small Group Private Tour Specialist

Plan your Italy adventure with the small group private tour specialist. Escape overtourism and discover the back roads and authentic small towns with us. Kathy and Vernon create your perfect trip, with off-the-beaten path destinations, activities from walks and bike rides to city tours and shopping, and expert-led culinary adventures.

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Food and Wine

Any tour of Italy is incomplete without indulging in the amazing food and wine. But to truly appreciate It requires an understanding of the regional history, culture and geography. All become part of your adventure with Kathy, chef, food blogger, and Certified Italian Wine Professional, and Vernon, mountain guide, MS in European Literature and avid history enthusiast.

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Your Unique Adventure

Not all private trips are custom. Most tour companies don't have the flexibility to deviate from their set itineraries, so there are always compromises. With Kathy and Vernon, your adventure will be as unique as you are, and your itinerary will be personally designed us to meet the desires and varied interests of your group.

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The ItaliaOutdoors Difference


Truly Personalized Service and a Custom Plan for Every Trip

Kathy and Vernon

NO MIDDLEMEN

You communicate directly with Vernon and Kathy. We know your dreams for an Italy adventure, we’ll have it ready for you when you arrive.

No Group Too Small

SMALL FOOTPRINT

Our small footprint allows us to travel like locals and enjoy spontaneous adventures as we explore the path less traveled.

 

Custom Plan

UNIQUE ITINERARY

Each tour itinerary is unique and serves as a framework for an exceptional journey, where a thoughtful plan adjusts to your pace.

 

Authenticity

KNOWLEDGE

We focus on just a few select tours to provide an exceptional level of regional knowledge and an unforgettable authentic experience.

Travel after COVID-19: How do you wish to travel in Italy when we are able to return? In a small private group of your family and friends? Plenty of outdoor explorations? Off the beaten track destinations far from tourist crowds? Private cooking classes, wine tours, small intimate hotels? That's how we've been traveling for ten years. Plan your adventure in Italy with Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine, the custom tour specialist.

Customize Your Adventure - Food - Wine - Walk - Hike - Bike

With Italy's "Best Local Guide 2013"

Read about our tours in Adventure Cyclist August 2015

Our passion is creating intimate, personalized active food and wine adventures that explore an authentic Italy
- its outdoor beauty, its hidden back roads, its small family producers, its traditional wines, at your preferred pace.
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Friuli-Venezia Giulia is located in the north-eastern corner of Italy, neighbors with Slovinia on the east, and Austria to the north. Part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I, it has been ruled by the Romans, Lombards and Byzantines. As a result, the cuisine of this region includes flavors and styles from many cultures, including Hungary, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia.

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Evening in Trieste

 

Friuli-Venezia Giulia is has little arable land, allowing only a limited amount of livestock raising and agriculture. Mountains cover 40 percent of the area, useful only for grazing. Alpine cattle produce the milk for cheeses such as Montasio, and pigs, preserved meat products such as the renowned San Daniele prosciutto.The mountain forests provide wonderful game and a variety of mushrooms, and mountain lakes supply lots of fresh trout.

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Fresh fish lunch in Friuli


The fertile plain of Friuli is not particularly large, and here is where we find the highest population density. The two banks of the Tagliamento River here are very different in their ability to support food production; the right bank has better drainage, and one finds grain cultivation and forage crops. The western bank alternates between dry during the summer months and soggy from fall and spring rains, and is most of it is usable only for grazing.

trieste buffet regional cuisine friuli tours
Traditional Trieste buffet


The Carso, bordering on Croatia, is an arid strip of limestone where sheep and goats are raised on small farms. One also finds vineyards, some corn fields, root crops and fruit orchards. Vegetable fields are found around Udine. Along the coastal plain, farmers raise a fine white maize that produces particularly delicate polenta. And finally, seafood is common along the Adriatic coastline on the southern extreme of this region. You will find many different varieties of fish soup, or brodetto.

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Orzotto - Barley risotto


The Austrian-Hungarian influence appears in many forms: the use of strudel, both savory and sweet, goulash, and sauerkraut. As in most of northern Italy, pasta takes a back seat to other starches, such as polenta and barley. Polenta is slightly wetter here than in Venezia itself. Barley is the most important grain in Friuli Giulia, introduced by the Jews who settled in Trieste, it is used often in soups and orzotto, a 'risotto' made with barley instead of rice.

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Apple strudel


Sweets are popular in this region, with many type of strudels, or variations thereof, but you will also discover many cakes, tarts and fritters. Most use fruit, such as apples, cherries and raisins and other dried fruit, and are often sweetened with honey.

pumpkin soup regional foods friuli tours
Pumpkin soup


Friuli-Venezia Giulia is 17th among the regions in Italy in size, and 15th in population, but ranks 9th in terms of wine production. It has always been proud of its wines, but only recently have they been exported in quantity, due to the fact that for most of its history there has not been much surplus to export! The first vines appeared in the region around 1000, imported by the Greeks. Today, some of the greatest wines in Italy hail from this region, include Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon, Verduzzo di Rocca Bernarda, Fruliano and Picolit.

Join us in Friuli, as we travel by bike to experience their wonderful wines and unique cuisine. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to learn more!