Emilia-Romagna
Bologna's famous Piazza Maggiore
Bologna is 40-60 minutes by train south to Florence, and 80-120 minutes north to Venice. Flat Emilia lies west of Bologna. Rolling Romagna hills go east of Bologna to the Adriatic.
Is food your top priority in life? Go to Emilia-Romagna!
In Modena you learn more than just how they make traditional balsamic vinegar. You taste the difference between the velvety, 25 year old traditional balsamic vinegar and the industrial, super market balsamic vinegar. What an education for your palate!
At the parmesan cheese factory, as the men lift huge parmesan rounds out of vats, it’s like witnessing a birth. Entering the immense store rooms where thousands of parmesan rounds age can feel like you’re in a foodie temple. Wow.
Strolling narrow streets in Bologna’s food market, the sheer abundance hits you. Shops are crammed full of prosciutto hanging from ceilings and parmesan rounds. Still life art in some window displays amuses or repels you.
Visit Bologna’s market with your cooking teacher and buy ingredients for your cooking school class in her home in the historic centre. Dine on your typical family style dishes around their table.
Walking in a pretty little hill town, Dozza, you admire its striking murals along medieval streets.
In Ravenna’s UNESCO World Heritage site, you stand in awe at the magnificent Byzantine churches with vast, glittering mosaics. Your local guide tells you their fascinating history.
Cuisine examples:
incredible variety of pasta from tortellini in broth to garganelli with arugula and prosciutto, breaded veal cutlet with prosciutto and parmesan, strawberries with vanilla ice cream and balsamic vinegar.
Main wines
Reds: Sangiovese, Lambrusco. Whites: Albana, Trebbiano, Chardonnay, Malvasia.
Mama Margaret’s Tours in Emilia-Romagna
Mama Margaret as your second tour guide
June 17-22 only
With Mama Margaret and her Bologna family tour friends, experience Emilia-Romagna’s world renowned Parmesan cheese, traditional balsamic vinegar, silk-like pasta and prosciutto di Parma, and real Italian life first hand. Discover Artusi’s world in his birthplace, Forlimpopoli, a quaint town with a magical medieval heart.
Cook and dine at Casa Artusi, an outstanding gastronomic cultural centre for Italian home cooking. Participate in the lively Artusi Festival on a summer day in the piazza, full of locals.
Cook simple, traditional dishes with a pasta expert in her 150 year old farmhouse. Walk with your host family mother in Bologna’s famous central market to learn about regional foods and shop for ingredients for your cooking class in her home.
Bologna Family Cooking Tour With Parmesan, Prosciutto and Balsamic Producer Visits
3 nights.
Get to know a fun loving, hospitable Bologna family who helps you enjoy Emilia-Romagna’s top food experiences. The mother, an excellent home cook, walks with you around Bologna’s food market, tells you about the main foods and shops for your cooking school class ingredients. At home you all cook a multi-plate dinner and sit down to share it with her family. Soon they feel like friends.
With the gregarious tour guide father, you visit the parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar and prosciutto producers, learn how they’re made and taste them right there.
If you want a short cooking tour of this region’s food highlights and real life Italian experiences with a local family, you’ll love this tour.
Food Lovers’ Adventure Tour In Italy’s Gastronomic Paradise: spring & summer itinerary
5 nights
Food lovers! Discover this world renowned food region with a cast of warm, welcoming locals.
Cook dishes with herbs with a restaurant chef. Cook with a family in their Bologna home. Dine around their table with them. Make many kinds of pasta with a pasta expert in her old country house.
See how they make parmesan and traditional balsamic vinegar. Taste them right with the producers.
Marvel at splendid Byzantine churches and mosaics in Ravenna.
If you’d like a wonderful variety of real life food and culture adventures with many local people in a top food region, this Italian cooking tour is perfect.
View Fall and Winter Itinerary
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