There is no shortage of websites advertising cooking vacations in Italy, and they certainly all look wonderful. How to choose? This guide will help you decide if ours is the best for you.

Our vacations are truly All-Inclusive

We encourage you to browse other websites and look at their itineraries, but look closely. Most of the time you will find that they are peppered with lines like 'this afternoon you are free to...' , or 'optionally you can...', etc. Many only include meals resulting from the classes. We include everything, If one morning we are not doing a class, we will have an excursion. Of course, if you would rather venture out on your own one day, you are free to, but if you want to go on an excursion with us, it is there, and it is included. What makes this important is that if we were to simply remove 3 meals and 3 excursions from our week, it would increase our profit by 20%, so the while our pricing is in line with others, the value is much greater.

100% Hands On, Full immersion classes

Many of the others do a great deal of 'Demonstration'. In other words, your class will include a 5 course meal, but you are only preparing one or two courses, while a great deal of the meal is being demonstrated for you. We don't believe this makes sense. With us, you will be 100% involved in preparing 100% of the meals.

Balance: Cooking, Major sightseeing & Off the beaten path

Our unique location in Italy affords us a luxury others simply cannot afford... we are close to so much! It allows us to build itineraries that balance cooking classes with fantastic sightseeing excursions to major sights such as Rome, Florence, Assisi, Perugia, Orvieto, and much more. Still, we balance these excursions with visits many of Italy's most prescious hidden treasures. You will find that our itineraries strike a wonderful balance that is unmatched.

Home Cooking vs. High Cuisine

While this is a matter of preference, it is important to note that we focus our classes on home cooking. Some others focus more on high cuisine, which doesn't translate well into the real world. We focus on traditional Tuscan and Umbrian dishes that you can make at home. We believe that you should be able to use all of the knowledge you have gained while you were with us once you get home. Because of this, we carefully select recipes that can be made with ingredients found outside of Italy, and when you leave we will provide you with a recipe book that includes both metric and imperial measurements, as well as substitutions for ingredients that you may not find at home.

A home kitchen vs. an industrial kitchen

Many others hold their classes in a restaurant kitchen or a modified villa kicthen for large scale classes. We hold our classes in the same kicthen that we have used for our family meals for years. We believe that if you are learning to cook Italian food for home, you should learn it in a kitchen that is equippped for home cooking, not large scale cooking. Our classes will be at Villa Eddarella, our summer home in Italy. This is a 380+ year old restored country farmhouse that has been in Paola's family for centuries. In other words, we welcome you into our home for your classes.

Accomodations

Some others will put you up in a hotel, while others will house you in a shared villa for your trip. We believe that living within the Italian culture is essential to making your time with us as magical as possible. You will stay at one of our breathtaking village homes. These are truly 1st class accomodations. Each one is completely independent, and beautifully decorated. They feature all modern conveniences, such as dedicated high speed WIFI Internet, satellite television, air conditioning, full kitchen, and much more. The homes are never shared. You have your own private place nestled in the medieval quarter of Soriano.

Location

Many people are not really familiar with the various regions in Italy, but they know certain buzzwords like 'Tuscany' or 'Umbria'. People often tell us they want to go to Tuscany and Florence. That is like hearing someone say they want to go to Los Angeles and California. The area of Italy that most people think of when they hear terms like 'Tuscan Countryside' or 'Tuscany Hilltowns' is an area known as 'Tuscia', which is made up of Southern Tuscany, Southern Umbria, and Northern Lazio. In fact, many places people think of when they think of Tuscany, aren't in Tuscany at all. Soriano nel Cimino is right at the center of this area. Soriano also has the added benefit of being very close to Rome, compared to most of Tuscany.

You are family

This can't be stressed enough. A week with us just doesn't feel like a tour at all. You will feel like you are visiting extended family, and we will feel like extended family is visiting. This isn't part of some formula to make your trip special, it is just the way it all works out. We have a very casual attitude toward it... this is fun for us, and we love sharing this wonderful place with others. Perhaps it is because we get to know you well before you arrive and we can't wait to finally meet, or perhaps it is just the Soriano air :-). Either way, you will go home having had the most amazing vacation of your life, having made amazing new friends, having learned to make incredible Italian home cooking, having seen remarkable things few tourists have seen, and having felt an uncanny sense belonging in a place so far away. Long before you get home, you will have started planning your return to Soriano nel Cimino.

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