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Small Group Private Tour Specialist

Plan your Italy adventure with the small group private tour specialist. Escape overtourism and discover the back roads and authentic small towns with us. Kathy and Vernon create your perfect trip, with off-the-beaten path destinations, activities from walks and bike rides to city tours and shopping, and expert-led culinary adventures.

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Food and Wine

Any tour of Italy is incomplete without indulging in the amazing food and wine. But to truly appreciate It requires an understanding of the regional history, culture and geography. All become part of your adventure with Kathy, chef, food blogger, and Certified Italian Wine Professional, and Vernon, mountain guide, MS in European Literature and avid history enthusiast.

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Your Unique Adventure

Not all private trips are custom. Most tour companies don't have the flexibility to deviate from their set itineraries, so there are always compromises. With Kathy and Vernon, your adventure will be as unique as you are, and your itinerary will be personally designed us to meet the desires and varied interests of your group.

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The ItaliaOutdoors Difference


Truly Personalized Service and a Custom Plan for Every Trip

Kathy and Vernon

NO MIDDLEMEN

You communicate directly with Vernon and Kathy. We know your dreams for an Italy adventure, we’ll have it ready for you when you arrive.

No Group Too Small

SMALL FOOTPRINT

Our small footprint allows us to travel like locals and enjoy spontaneous adventures as we explore the path less traveled.

 

Custom Plan

UNIQUE ITINERARY

Each tour itinerary is unique and serves as a framework for an exceptional journey, where a thoughtful plan adjusts to your pace.

 

Authenticity

KNOWLEDGE

We focus on just a few select tours to provide an exceptional level of regional knowledge and an unforgettable authentic experience.

Travel after COVID-19: How do you wish to travel in Italy when we are able to return? In a small private group of your family and friends? Plenty of outdoor explorations? Off the beaten track destinations far from tourist crowds? Private cooking classes, wine tours, small intimate hotels? That's how we've been traveling for ten years. Plan your adventure in Italy with Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine, the custom tour specialist.

Customize Your Adventure - Food - Wine - Walk - Hike - Bike

With Italy's "Best Local Guide 2013"

Read about our tours in Adventure Cyclist August 2015

Our passion is creating intimate, personalized active food and wine adventures that explore an authentic Italy
- its outdoor beauty, its hidden back roads, its small family producers, its traditional wines, at your preferred pace.
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The most important cheese produced in Northern Italy is Grana Padano. It is produced all along the Po Valley, from Lombardia to the Veneto and into Trentino Alto Adige, where it is called Grana Trentino. Its origins date to around the 11th century, when Cistercian monks from the Chiaravalle Abbey near Milan began to drain the surrounding swamp land to use for agriculture and cultivation. Cattle farms appeared on this newly available, very fertile pastureland. These pastures provided exceptional quantities of new forage for the cattle, and soon the many cattle were producing much more milk than could be used on a daily basis. The farmers needed some way of utilizing or preserving the milk that was not immediately consumed.

 

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Cows grazing in mountains in Italy

The monks happened upon a method of turning the perishable milk into a hard rind cheese that actually improved with a long period of aging. The cheese created by the method discovered by the monks became very popular, and by the 15th century production had spread throughout northern Italy, with Vicenza in the Veneto becoming a major production area where considerable cattle farms were producing large quantities of milk. Trade records of the 15th and 16th centuries record the exchange of this cheese, which became very popular in the cuisine of the region.

Grana Padano cheese is still produced in much the same way. It is manufactured from cow’s milk from the two milkings, drawn early in the morning and late in the day of the same day, then partially skimmed by allowing the cream to rise to the top. The milk is then transferred to a copper pot which holds enough milk for two cheeses.

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Shaving grana cheese in cooking class

Rennet is added, and It is heated slightly to encourage coagulation. The curds are cut into very small pieces, and then it is cooked twice. The cooked curds are removed using cloths and placed into two moulds. These moulds are turned over several times and then salted in a brine bath for 28 days. After brining, the rounds are ripened and aged in a temperature and humidity controlled environment for 12 to 36 months, where they are checked, cleaned, and turned over regularly.

After aging, the cheese has a dark yellow or golden brown rind which is hard, smooth and thick. True Grana Padano must bear the mark of the Grana Padano Consortium. Grana Padano from Trentino, and from Trentino only, can additionally be marked with its place of origin. The body of the cheese is straw-yellow, flaky, and granular, with no holes. It can be used for grating, or as a table cheese.

 

 

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Grana Padana logo

In 1996, Grana Padano cheese was classified as a DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta). This designation assures the consumer that the cheese has been produced according to specific standards regulating the raw ingredients (breed of cows, where they graze, what milking are used), production process and aging procedures. If the cheese meets these strict quality standards, the rind is fire branded with the mark of the Consortium for the protection of Grana Padano.