Sassi Italy Tours: Spring Special For 2016!

Sassi Italy Tours is proud to present its Spring 2016 special offer. Spring in Italy is magical, with winter giving way to longer days, shorter nights, and warmer weather. The weather is lovely, the crowds of summer have yet to arrive, the accommodation prices are reasonable, and Italy as it should be experienced is there for the taking. Join us!

We will offer departures from anywhere, but we’ll recommend an overnight from from Newark to Milan (EWR to MXP) as the best rates are found from there; there are flights from the East Coast of the US to Venice, but few are direct and the extra cost is rarely worth it. We’ll land at MXP in the morning and hop a quick local express train to Milano Centrale (what a picturesque train station!) for a quick train ride across Italy’s Po River Valley through Lombardia and onto Venice. Three nights in Venice await at a fabulous hotel in Cannaregio close to Fondamenta Nuove, the Rialto, and the baccari and enoteche of Venice’s quiet corners. We’ll arrive in Venice in time for a late lunch of cicchetti at our favorite cicchetti bar near Santi Apostoli. Then, it’s time to check-in to our “home in Venice.” After a quick siesta, we’ll take an evening walking tour along Strada Nuova and then on to a lovely meal (dinner in Venice rarely starts before 7:30 or 8:00pm!) at a local family run trattoria. Afterwards, we’ll take in the view from the Rialto at night.  You’ll spend three nights in Venice enjoying Doug’s famous walking tours (when in Italy, even Doug’s Italian friends ask him where to go and what to do in Venice!), which include sites and attractions that other tour groups often miss! We’ll visit:

• Burano and Mazzorbo
• Torcello’s ancient Basilica
• Piazza San Marco
• San Giorgio Maggiore and the astounding view from her campanile
• The Rialto and surrounding markets
• Cicchetti bars
• Dorsoduro
• Squero di San Trovaso (gondola making)
• The Frari
• della Salute
• Murano
• …more cicchetti bars (the best seafood you’ll ever eat!)
• A meal in a restaurant that Tony Bourdain sort of made famous (but where Doug was a regular 20 years before) that will leave you speechless!
• A romantic nighttime vaporetto ride
• Wine tastings at a romantic, hard-to-find bacari that you’ll remember forever
• …and much, much more!

  Three nights in Venice with Sassi Italy Tours will prove an unforgettable experience that, on day four, you’ll be sad to see come to an end.  But you’ll be back!  This we are quite sure of. But it’ll be onto the Lake Region!

  We’ll stay next in Soave, a prominent northern Italian city famous for ancient architecture, delicious regional dishes, and being one of the most productive and known from afar wine producing regions in Italy.  Soave we’ve found makes a great home base for exploring towns like Sirmione, Desenzano del Garda, Bardolino, Bolzano, Verona, Vicenza, etc. After a quick train ride from Venice, we’ll be met by prearranged ground transportation and Sassi Italy Tours will ferry you to a series of vineyards and wineries where you’ll taste prosecco, Soave, Franciacorta, and Lugana wines at the source, with Italy’s fabulous Lake Garda as a backdrop. Sassi Italy Tours has been visiting this region since the 1980s, and our local friends will make sure your three days here are a magical experience.

  

  

  

  

   

  After three nights in the Lake Region, we’ll head for what we’d argue is–with apologies to the noble regions of France–the best wine and food region on the planet, Italy’s majestic Piemonte. With the Alps framing the views, we’ll drive into the heart of Italy’s Barolo country and stay at quiet agriturismi and bed and breakfasts in the rolling hills of the finest wine-producing region the world has to offer. We’ll taste local food specialties and get private tours of some of the best wineries in the world and get to meet the wine makers themselves and learn about their craft. Piemonte is picture book beautiful, and frankly no photography can do it justice:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

  Our package includes:

  • Departure from EWR to MXP, round trip
  • Shuttle train to Milano Centrale
  • Train to Venice
  • Vaporetto pass in Venice
  • Museum admissions and landmark admissions in Venice
  • Train to Soave
  • Ground transport and transfers where applicable
  • Guided tours with Doug Sassi himself of Venice, the Lake Region, and Piemonte
  • Wine tastings throughout at select vineyards
  • All hotel and B&B accommodations for all nine nights

    All of this is available for travel in February through April 2015 for $3200 per person. Don’t delay, book now! An incredible value for exploring the best of Northern Italy.