8 Day Tour Summary 2025: (Scroll down for full details and itinerary)
Price:  5,250 euros per person based on double occupancy, fully inclusive of all transport, hotels and all meals except the second evening's dinner in Lucca. This price is based on 6 people using 3 hotel rooms. Single person supplement to be added if not sharing a room.
Smaller Group Pricing if requesting a tour for less than 6 people:
7,000 euros per person for 4 people using 2 hotel rooms
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A slideshow of photos taken over the years in various seasons of places in the Maremma and around Lucca, most of which will be covered on this tour:
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Remaining 2025 Dates:Â Â 4-11 October (contact us with regard to 2026 if you have specific dates in mind for next year so we can plan a tour around your preferences).
Support: Transportation provided throughout the tour in a Mercedes van with a professional driver. Pick-up and drop off at a central location in Florence. Mike & Elena will accompany the group every day and will be available throughout the entire tour.
Hotels:Â Â We have selected 4 star hotels in each location that provide the best ambience, views, outdoor spaces and overall quality. All guest rooms have private bathrooms.
Terms & Conditions:Â Â Â Will be sent on request to interested persons.
Contact:Â Â Â For further information, clarifications or to express interest in booking one of the 2025 tours please contact us at Mike@mykindofitaly.com
If your idea of Tuscany is ancient towns and villages, each with their own story to tell, nestled in gently rolling hills carpeted with vines and olive trees under azure blue skies, that’s our idea of Tuscany too.Â
You don’t have to travel back in time to experience this dream of Tuscany and nor do you have to share it with crowds of tourists because on the Secret Places of Tuscany Tour you’ll visit many locations that you’ve probably never heard of but in fact are perfect little towns surrounded by some of the best scenery in Tuscany.Â
Lucca is the first destination, the town that has been our home for the last 12 years and even longer for Elena. After 3 nights in Lucca we will head south to the Maremma, first to Campiglia Marittima for 2 nights and then to the southern Maremma close to Magliano in Toscana for the final 3 nights.
This tour will not be visiting any of the major Tuscan tourist destinations because so many people have already seen Florence, Siena, Montepulciano, Montalcino and the Val d'Orcia. Though many of the towns on our itinerary will likely be unfamiliar to you, they are the same towns that Elena and her fellow Tuscans love and the places they flee to when tourists take over their cities in the summer.
We’ve chosen our two Maremma locations of Campiglia Marittima and Magliano in Toscana so that everywhere on the daily itinerary is only a short drive away from one or the other with the result that the time spent in transit every day will be kept to an absolute minimum. Furthermore, and just as important, is that the accommodation available in both these places is simply first class.Â
Tour Dates, Itinerary and Cost:
This is a small group tour that you can book as an individual or couple or as a group.
If booking as a group you will have some flexibility to suggest changes to our proposed itinerary and then together we can come up with a schedule that exactly matches your requirements.
If booking as an individual or couple there is no absolute minimum number of people for the tour to proceed but the cost per person will inevitably be higher as indicated above.
Remaining 2025 Tour Dates: October 4-11.
Cost for 8 days based on double room occupancy and including transportation and all meals except for one dinner in Lucca:Â 5,250 euros per person for a party of 6 or 7,000 euros per person for a party of 4 people.
(For two people we'll be happy to discuss a revised itinerary which will mitigate the cost of daily transportation and make the trip more affordable). See below for the list of inclusions and exclusions.
Single room occupancy will require a supplement of 750 euros but may be less if we can obtain smaller rooms at the hotels selected.
Contact us at mike@mykindofitaly.com
DAY 1: Florence (or possibly Pisa) pick-up at a pre-agreed time early afternoon with transport (50 mins) to Lucca in time for an introductory tour of Lucca. We’ll get together over pre-dinner drinks to answer any questions followed by a group dinner at Osteria da Pasquale.
DAY 2: Morning tour of Michelangelo's Marble Mountains (above photo) followed by lunch in nearby Pietrasanta, the home of sculpture and outdoor art in Italy.
Afternoon and dinner on your own in Lucca. A visit to Elisa Bonaparte's Villa Reale can also be arranged in the afternoon for those interested.
Prior to heading out for cocktails and dinner Elena will conduct a short Olive Oil tutorial in the hotel where she will present a small selection of some of the best Tuscan and Umbrian olive oils and educate you on how to properly evaluate olive oil prior to the Day 4 visit to Fonte di Foian0.
DAY 3: Transfer day to the Maremma with Suvereto as the first port of call prior to a wine tasting, vineyard and cellar tour plus lunch at either Tua Rita or Petra (photo right).
These are the two most prestigious wineries in the Val di Cornia and the final choice will be made when the composition of the group is known because Petra makes only red wines whereas Tua Rita produces both red and white. Petra however has an architecturally very impressive winery building (photo right).
The afternoon will include a few hours in the single most impressive town in the Maremma in our opinion - Massa Marittima - after which we'll head to our hotel in Campiglia Marittima and have a group dinner locally.
DAY 4: Morning visit to the fascinating Etruscan settlement of Populonia just 20 minutes away. The Populonia archeological park contains the most impressive acropolis and necropolis combination in Tuscany and, demonstrating the importance of this coastal town through subsequent ages, there are also the remains of a Roman domus adjacent to the acropolis and a medieval village and fortress that overlook the gorgeous Gulf of Baratti. By now all of you will begin to understand our affection for the Maremma but there is a lot more to come.
After Populonia we'll drive half an hour north to Fonte di Foiano just outside the wine town of Castagneto Carducci for a tasting of their wonderful selection of award winning olive oils, followed by lunch on their Farmhouse Restaurant terrace where the chef's simple dishes are designed to showcase their oils. Elena will be on hand to provide further olive oil tuition at lunch.
After lunch there will be time for a stroll around the delightful wine town of Castagneto Carducci high up on the hill with great sea views. Late afternoon return to the hotel followed by a group dinner.
DAY 5: This morning we'll head to the seaside after breakfast and hotel check-out, starting with a walk along the beach near Principina a Mare which is only a couple of miles away from our morning visit to the cheese emporium of Guido Pallini called La Maremmana where he raises water buffalo to make exquisite mozzarella and other fresh and aged cheeses.
After learning all the secrets of mozzarella from the person at La Maremmana who actually hails from Battipaglia, the most famous mozzarella town in Italy, we'll travel a very short distance to the lovely seaside town of Castiglione della Pescaia for a relaxing lunch and stroll through town.
Late afternoon we'll drive the short distance (45 mins) to our next hotel for the remaining 3 nights of the tour, located just outside the ancient walled town of Magliano in Toscana. Group dinner at the hotel.
DAY 6: Today we're following in the footsteps of James Bond or rather in his wake to the historically important town of Talamone, only 20 mins drive from the hotel.
A few miles south of Talamone is the Monte Argentario peninsula containing the small town of Porto Ercole where Caravaggio died in mysterious circumstances in 1610. After visiting Porto Ercole we'll have lunch in nearby Porto Santo Stefano where Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor fled from the paparazzi while filming Cleopatra in 1963. There will be plenty of time after lunch to enjoy a stroll around this delightful port before returning the short distance to the hotel for some relaxation before the evening events.
Porto Ercole (left) and Porto Santo Stefano (right)
We’ll make this evening a Tuscan white wine celebration so Elena will conduct a wine tasting of some of our favorite Vermentino white wines from coastal Tuscany and also a couple of our preferred Vernaccia white wines from San Gimignano, followed by dinner in the hotel.
DAY 7: Today is the last full day of the tour so you get to choose your activity. There are plenty of options on offer at the hotel including walking routes and bike rental or you can choose to take advantage of our transportation to visit the remarkable town of Pitigliano (below).
A forbidding looking place carved out of volcanic rock and once inhabited by Etruscans, it became an important place of refuge for people of the Jewish faith as long ago as the 14th century, acquiring the nickname 'little Jerusalem'.
Certainly a very different looking town to the Maremma of the last few days. There will also be time for a short visit to nearby Sovana and Sorano.
For those interested we will organize a group cooking class at the hotel in late afternoon followed by dinner.
DAY 8:Â After breakfast transportation will be provided back to Florence.
NOTES:
1. Included in the price are 7 nights in superb accommodation, including ensuite bathrooms, 7 breakfasts and 6 dinners at these hotels and/or restaurants and 7 lunches at the various places we have mentioned in the above itinerary. Wine at lunch and dinner is also included.
2. Also included are all of the activities mentioned - wine tastings, olive oil tastings, cooking class, the cheese producer visit and any entrance fees.
3. All transportation is included, starting from the pick-up in Florence to the drop-off in Florence at the end of the tour.
4. This is a fully escorted tour so also included in the price is as much time and assistance from Mike & Elena as you require, which will include at no extra charge informal Italian lessons from Elena if required by anyone (see also the Language section of this website) and Mike is always happy to accompany you on a bike ride, whether on electric bikes or regular bikes.
5. Not included are additional and optional hotel provided activities, drinks (other than mealtime water and wine) and incidental expenses of any kind.
6. Detailed terms and conditions will be submitted later to interested parties. Meanwhile for further information, discussions about changes to the itinerary or to express interest in booking this tour please email us at Mike@mykindofitaly.com or use the contact form in the About Us section of this website.
Why choose to tour with us?
Having guided British and American family and friends around Tuscany for several years there are few people better qualified than Elena and I to personally escort you on a tour of Tuscany.
Born and raised in Florence, Elena has lived in Tuscany her entire life, the last 15 years of which have been in Lucca where I joined her from America 11 years ago.
Elena is a qualified Italian Sommelier and Maestro d’Olio (the olive oil equivalent of a wine sommelier) and conducts tutored tastings on both subjects as well as guiding her language students through all aspects of Italian life in Lucca (left photo).
Together on this website we have written extensively about Italian wine, food and olive oil, documenting our visits to numerous producers of some of Italy's finest gastronomic products like Culatello di Zibello.
There is nowhere that Elena and I haven’t been in Tuscany, including all across the island of Elba, and though many people are familiar with some of the more famous places in this region of Italy, very few know much about all the little towns and villages that Tuscans themselves love. Who reading this has ever heard of Montemassi (below) or Magliano in Toscana for example.
Only a native of Tuscany truly understands the culture, history and traditions of this most famous of all Italian regions and that is what makes Elena an indispensable part of your tour and why she will accompany you every step of the way to ensure that this will be a learning experience as well as a unique vacation.
Additional background information written by us on this website:
Tuscany Wines - overview of the entire Tuscany wine region
Caveat Emptor - examples of unscrupulous labelling practices to be aware of when buying Italian olive oil, especially outside Italy