Taste of Italy Food Tour to Chianti and Umbria from Rome

Rome, Italy

Head out of Rome and off the beaten track to experience a different side of Italy in Tuscany and Umbria. You'll visit the lovely towns of Cortona and Montepulciano, and sample wine, cheeses, salami, olive oil and other local specialties.

Leaving Rome, you'll head north to cross the Tiber valley to Cortona. This town has changed little since the Middle Ages, and was most recently depicted in the Oscar-winning film La Vita e Bella and described by American novelist Frances Mayes in her book Under the Tuscan Sun. As a result, Cortona is enjoying renewed popularity. Stroll through the historic center, absorbing the atmosphere of this picturesque town.

Next you'll drive along the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Lunch will be served in a typical country restaurant.

In the afternoon, you'll drive through the hills of the Chianti region to reach the hilltop town of Montepulciano. The ruby-red Vino Nobile wine of this town is famous the world over. You'll visit one of the oldest wine cellars, discover the winemakers' secrets and taste the final result!

USD $150.66

Traveler Reviews

Review by: Nickey	April 2012
Loved, loved, loved, this tour. Cortona and Montepulciano are beautiful. Our guide was knowledgable of not only the towns themselves, but of the land, trees, and other towns along the way. The bus was crazy hot though, but it seemed like we were always warmer than most of the locals. The restaurant we stopped at was wonderful, quaint, the food amazing. I absolutely adored the old man at the winery. Amando or something. Overall a wonderful day trip, and a beautiful day.

Review by: robert m	November 2011
A loverly day, lots of good information from the guide. Lunch was very good, and the locations visited were well thought out.

Review by: lisadroni	November 2011
Fantastic tour! The guide, Stefano, was incredibly knowledgeable and very willing to answer all questions from the group. Although you are on the tour bus for a few hours during the day, the bus is comfortable and the views are spectacular. You are given a good amount of free time in Cortona to check out the old town and take in the views and people. Lunch was at a different location, surrounded by olive trees and rolling hills. The tour at the winery in Montepulciano was great, and the views AMAZING! This trip was a perfect respite from our busy 11 day trip in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Completely recommended!

Review by: JOHN	October 2011
The tour was one of the highlights of our vacation in Italy, We loved the area, the Lunch was delicious and the wine tour was fun and educational. Our thanks to Stephano, he was extremely helpful and knowledgable about the area and helped us really understand where we were. John and Linda skillern Claremore OK USA

Review by: Lucy L	October 2011
This tour was the highlight of our vacation. The tour guide was wonderful and informative, and we LOVED the time we spent in Cortona and Montepulciano. There was enough time to roam around and enjoy the towns. I would definately recommend this tour to everyone!

Review by: Frank L	October 2011
A fantastic day, In my opinion a beautiful part of Italy, the guide was great , the food and scenery were magnificent.

Review by: Andrea K	October 2011
Not worth doing. We were driven to town and told very little and then left to our own devices.

Review by: Danny T	October 2011
Food was not so good.

Review by: Vicki T	October 2011
The sights in the countryside were very nice. Stefano was friendly and shared information on the sights. This is a very long day so prepare accordingly.

Review by: Jeff W	October 2011
We thoroughly enjoyed our day. Very professional company to deal with. We enjoyed seeing the countryside as we drove to our locations. There were sufficient breaks to walk around on our own. Highly recommend this day trip.

Review by: Brooke D	October 2011
The trip was fantastic! Stefano was awesome! Loved, loved, loved Cortona and Montepulciano!

Review by: Donna P	October 2011
very good tour

Review by: Susan T	October 2011
This was the perfect tour to end our trip in Italy. Enjoyed the tour and the guide was very nice and knowledgeable.

Review by: Ann-Maree Hayes	October 2011
Excellent tour and guide was wonderful. Apologies for not thanking him properly at the end of a long but wonderful day. Driver fantastic as well and delivered us all home at the end of the day. Well worth doing._br/_ Hayes Family Australia

Review by: terri L	October 2011
the tour was everything we hoped for. Our guide was friendly and knowledgeable and the driver drove safely. We enjoyed every minute of this incredible tour.

Review by: Carolyn J	October 2011
Paid a lot of money and it could have been better. For the price drinks should have been included and the visit to winery was disappointing. Tour guide Stephano left the tour before any of the passengers. It was nice seeing the towns. Also we should not have had to pay for local bus it should be included in price!

Review by: Lety	October 2011
I am not a city person so it was a nice change to leave Rome for a trip to the country. The only problem was that the tour guide was terrible. He was unfriendly and ignored any questions._br/_ The point of this trip was to taste food and try wine. And he rushed us through the food and we tasted the wine like they were shots. _br/_ I would recommend this tour but don't take it with Estefano. _br/_ At the end of the trip we asked for a recommendation for a dinner place in Rome close to our hotel. He dropped us off over 30 minutes from the hotel so we had to take a cab, terrible person with no people skills.

Review by: navman	October 2011
The tour didn't live up to our expectation! Although the lunch was excellent, we expected more local cuisine to be offered for sampling throughout the day. All wine tasting was at an additional cost and the tour guide acted more like a salesman that made it seem like a shopping trip than anything else. On a positive note, we visited a couple of medieval cities. Not the best tour of Tuscany.

Review by: Jan	October 2011
This tour was the biggest disappointment of our entire trip. It was terrible. Our guide Stefano was unkempt, rude, and apparently not very knowledgeable about the Tuscan region. He offered no real information regarding the towns we visited. He did, however, spend the majority of our time telling us were we needed to buy things. In fact, lunch was held at just such a place. Even before we could eat, we were all ushered into a room so that the "owner" of the establishment could sell her wares to a captived group. The food wasn't very good, and actually no one, including the servers, could determine just what we were eating! I must say that the towns we visited were quite beautiful, but as far as being with a "guide", it just didn't happend. We knew going into this trip that it would be several hours of driving, but we never expected to stop just so our guide could smoke a cigarette! This was without a doubt the mosst unprofessional of guides. He even borrowed a ciagarette from someone in our group! I can see how this tour could be fabulous with a good guide, but this was not our case. Before you book this cruise, please find out who your guide will be. If it's Stefano - don't book; you would, in my opinion, be wasting your money. I am suspect of the Tour Operator, if that is the type of guide they are comfortable sending our on their excursions.

Review by: Judith G	October 2011
This was an awesome tour!! It was exactly what one would expect to see and do in a trip into the mountains of Tuscany, Italy. It is a long day that required some time on the tour bus but there were only 16 people on the tour and the bus was comfortable and smaller therefore allowing you to see more of this beautiful countryside!!

Review by: Robert L	October 2011
Disappointing! We were not picked up for the tour since we were staying in an apartment. When we called to confirm, we were told to meet the bus at the tour office. We would have been glad to be picked up a nearby hotel. This was an additional cost of 20 euros. The ride generally was just that....a bus ride! The tour guide was boring and provided little information. He told us not to shop in Cortona because it was too expensive. His only recommendations there were the wine store and leather shops. He said there would be time to shop later. At the lunch stop, our guide spent 20 minutes describing everything for sale at this stop. It would have been nice if some explanation was made regarding the food served. After rushing us through lunch as we were runing late, it was off to Montepulciano. There we all stood in line to purchased bus tickets. The guide was too lazy to do it. We had a 10 minute tour and tasted two wines. We were told the tasking would include five wines. With more than an hour left in Montepulciano, there was nothing to do....shopping was at the bottom of the hill. We asked our guide two times at what hotels the bus was stopping so that we would not inclur another 20 euro cab ride. He never gave us an answer...kept saying I'll let you know. He never did. He got off the bus before anyone else. The bus driver dropped everyone off at their destination. We hopped off where we were comfortable to walk to our apartment. The guide obviously was not interested in entertaining the group. He couldn't wait until the day ended. Neither could we!!

Review by: Lianne H	September 2011
This was areally beautiful and interesting tour. The guide could have been a bit more friendly to begin with, but we developed a great comraderie by the end. Great fun!

Review by: Miss M A C M	September 2011
The tour could have been really good but the guide was totally disinterested and didn't appear to know anything about the area. No words of enthusiasm or interest except when he tried to get us to buy stuff from friends. The food was very poor, I would have sent it back in a restaurant, and the wine tasting amounted to a visit to a wine cellar which was open to anyone, to taste 5 differnt versions of one wine. Took about 10 minutes._br/_ Most of my fellow travellers were disappointed as well. There really was no Taste of Italy on this tour. Suggest organisers check out the places customers are being taken. I would be wary of booking with this company again.

Review by: balters	September 2011
The views were breathtaking... I would definitely go on this tour again - it was a refreshing break from the city of Roma.

Review by: Ann M K	September 2011
My food tour on Sept.11 was to Cortona and Montepulciano. The lunch by Lake Trasimeno was fair. I did not care for our tour The wine tasting in Montepulciano was not much. We all stood and sipped a variety of wines. On a similar tour the group was seated at a table, wine was served along with bread cheese and an assortment of Italian cold cuts. Shopping could have been more fun in Cortona if only we had more time.

Review by: Beverly M	September 2011
The scenary was amazing! We loved looking at the countryside, but our tour guide Stefano was a complete JERK!! He added very little knowledge to the trip and treated the Americans on our tour with complete disrespect!! He clearly was getting some sort of monetary "cut" from the place where we had lunch, because he at one point told us not to buy anything in Cortona because it was very expensive and that we could find the same things, much cheaper at our next stop. When we got to the next stop...there was NO shopping, only food items for us to buy. We felt VERY mislead! He was so awful that he ruined our experience of the beautiful Tuscan countryside. I would say if you had a better tour guide the trip would have been amazing, but beware if you get Stefano..he was horrible!!!

Review by: Ignazio C	September 2011
Our tour was great value (13 hrs) and quite informative, but the tour guide could have been better prepared as access to Montopulciano was closed and we had to walk up an incredibly steep hill to get to the town in 35+ degree heat - after he had us waiting in the hot sun for over an hour first as he did not know the local buses to town were not working. Also, he was more concerned with taking us to his "friends" businesses and buying things from them than from anywhere else.

Review by: F. Lynn F	September 2011
Again this Tour Operator is very disorganized left late from Rome plus the tour guide Stepheno was not very good becasuse he was very sick, coughing, sneezing and hacking and not using a leenex I thought he would make us all sick plus he smoked all during the tour even when he was suppose to be telling us information. I can not be around people that smoke as a got 2nd hand smoke when I was in Spain and have asthma. I asked him a question about what one of the buildings were in Cortona and he said he did not know because he was not from the area. I thought he was suppose to be telling us about the city of Cortona. I guess he was eirther too ILL or not knowledgeable. He also on the bus ride said a couple of not nice remarks and downgrading women and stated that in America you can not smoke in most places and that it was he right to smoke when and where he wanted to smoke reguardless of others. I o not want to be sick or die from cancer because he could careless about others. Very poor experience. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Review by: Margot H	September 2011
VERY Disappointing. Tuscany is incredibly beautiful, but the lunch was the worst food and service we had during our stay in Italy. The wine served at the winery was not drinkable for anyone who has some wine experience.

Review by: boombamel	September 2011
This tour was a complete disappointment. The only positive thing I found was the breathtaking scenery . The tour guide Stefano was mediocre and unpleasant._br/_ He did not give us any information on the towns we visited( Cortona and Montepulciano ) The only moment he seemed motivated was when it was time sell us the products from the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. The lunch was average. I was expecting more.Stefano told us we would be eating by the lake and we did not. When we got to Montepulciano we were not able to get public transportation to take us up to town. Stefano made us wait 1 hour at the bus terminal. He told us our tour bus was not allowed to go up._br/_ After waiting all that time the tour bus took us up to a certain point from where we had to climb stairs to get the the town center. It is sad because one of the person on our tour had to stay in the bus because she was not fit enough to walk up the stairs. We then got to the cellar where we did a wine tasting of very bad wine that lasted all of 10 minutes. We were rushed because the owner had to close. Afterwards we were given only 25 minutes to visit Montepulciano by foot because we lost an hour of our time waiting for a bus that never came at the terminal._br/_ This tour was not worth the money spent._br/_ I am not recommending your company to anyone.

Review by: Debbie	September 2011
The guide did nothing to describe the historical significance of the places we visited. He was more interested in getting us to purchase items in stores he suggested. The tour would have been more interesting with more stories about the area. Lunch was mediocre. To add insult to injury there was no air conditioning on the way home. try 30 hot and irritable tourists.

Review by: Marta W	September 2011
I would not recommend this tour. I think like I waisted my money.

Review by: canduro	September 2011
I wouldn't recommend this trip to anyone. The scenery is nice but the tour guide was rude and we did not see and/or get to do all that was promised. This trip is contracted to a Tour Operator and I wouldn't recommend booking anything with them.

Review by: Warren K	September 2011
Don't waste your precious day. The Taste of Italy was basically an oppurtunity for the guide to act on behalf of the owners to hard sell their products at the restaurant. The wine tasting was a joke. The guide (Stefano) knew little to nothing about wine making. He was rude to some of the passengers on the tour. Our expectations and those of the others on the tour were not met.

Review by: Luiz Q	September 2011
In fact, we love Italy so much that we like everything about it. But this tour is a little disapointing, because we didn't consider that the food was in a lavel to be considered as a real "taste" of Italy. We experienced regular food at a regular restaurant, with nothing special about it. It looks more like a trick for tourists to buy the products of the owner of the restaurant. The wine taste, however, was nice and I considered the wine cellar we visited as high level and the wines we tasyed were all very good. Therefore, I hardly recomend that you change the place for the food taste to something better. The tour guide was very nice though we have to say it.

Review by: A C	September 2011
enjoyed this trip very much was good to get away from the business of Rome for a day. Lovely to see the scenery of Tuscany pity sunflowers had finished blooming.Stefanos was a good guide ,very informative, could have listened to him more!.If any criticism at was to be made it would be that lunch was okay and that whilst the food tasting was lovely it was a pity that it took place in a farm type shop and whilst we probably would have made some purchases you kind of felt obliged to buy. Wine tasting in Montepuciano was good.

Review by: Ross J	August 2011
A great full day tour. very interesting and great sights as well a wine tasting. Guide was very informative. We enjoyed the day and would recommned it

Review by: danny p	August 2011
This was the hilite of our trip to Cantona a small hilltop village in Tuscany, breathtaking views, very good guide and driver, the lunch was acceptable however the wine tasting needs to be improved the owner or manager of the establishment was late for our tour and not very organized however he was very friendly and pleasesant to deal with._br/_ A must excursion if your pressed for time

Review by: Nicole S	August 2011
The bus was comfortable and the tour was very relaxed and enjoyable.

Review by: jrpactor	August 2011
DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR. Our tour guide was a hefty half American / Half Italian that smoked every chance he would get. We loved the movie UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN but when we got to Cordova...nothing about that film or LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL were even mentioned. Our tour guide told us DO NOT BUY ANYTHING IN CORDOVA as everything was overpriced and that the Farm they were taking us to for Lunch would have EVERYTHING MUCH CHEAPER. A LIE. Yes, the farm had a small shack that we were all smooshed into and he told us to buy, buy, buy their oil, wine, cheese...the same happened when we hit the winery. He obviously gets a commission from these two stops. Lunch was alright. I will COMMEND the SHOP OWNER for packing our seven plates of pasta. Each was wrapped with Bubble Wrap and the price for each was rather cheap. We gave them our Credit Card for shipping thinking we were going to get RIPPED OFF for shipping. The plates arrived while we were still on vacation. PERFECTLY PACKAGED and we were only charged 10.5 Euros for shipping. Which was nothing compared to what you could barely get for 10.5 Euros in Italy. We arrived by bus to take the Gondola up to the winery only to find it closed. The town where the winery was actually had a set piece from the movie TWILIGHT which was not advertised. Also, if you remember in the movie UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN there was a Flag Throwing Competition in Town...exciting to see, but it was children and we had to wait extra long for the bus down the hill. AVOID THIS TOUR AT ALL COSTS!

Review by: Mack M, United States of America	July 2010
Great trip, both towns where great and the tour guide was great also.

Review by: Katlyn C, United States of America	June 2010
Fantastic! Not too many people going on this trip, which made it feel less like we were a bunch of tourists. Very easy with hotel pickup even though my hotel wasn't even on the list, I was picked up. The bus was very comfortable. My guide, Stefano, was great informative and personable! The locations were beautiful! The food and wine were wonderful! We were given time in each place to stop, shop and explore on our own, which was great! It was a memorable and delightful experience!

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	June 2010
We had a wonderful time! Stefano was excellent and both drivers were safe and comfortable. We enjoyed Cortona and Montepulciano, lunch, and the beautiful countryside. It was great to be picked up and dropped off at the hotel, too. This was just what we wanted for an introduction to the Italian countryside. Thank YOU!

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	June 2010
we had such a wonderful time on this tour, it's a must do.Catona was breathtaking, the lunch was fabulous and the winnery, 1000 years old, you have to see it, and our tour guide was very informative, I would highly recommend this tour.

Review by: Anonymous, Australia	May 2010
very happy with tour

Review by: Raymundo R, United States of America	May 2010
Wonderful tour.

Review by: Mieczyslaw K, United States of America	April 2010
Great tour guide.

Review by: Bryan M, United States of America	April 2010
Beautiful sites. The smaller bus and group made the whole all day trip more than bearable. Best part of our honeymoon.

Review by: Lisa C, United States of America	April 2010
The tour was fantastic! Mostly due to the charm and information given by the guide, Stefano. It is a long day, but ample breaks are given and the bus makes a stop for cappuccino and a snack on the way to Cortona the first stop. For those who are "Twilight" fans, the main square of Montalpulciano is the star of one of the main scenes where Bella saves Jacob. If you're a fan, you'll recognize it immediately.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	April 2010
HAD A GREAT TIME. HOPE TO BOOK AGAIN SOMETIME.