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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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gnocchi cooking class private italy tours
Gnocchi at our cooking class in Italy

 

Pasta, a food synonymous with Italy, is not as common in the Northeastern regions as are other starches, notably polenta and gnocchi. Gnocchi is often based on potatoes, but here Trentino, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the Veneto you will find an interesting variety of regional variations. Among the options, one will find gnocchi based on stale bread, ricotta and other cheese, semolina, buckwheat, spinach, meats like speck and even spleen.

canederli regional foods italy culinary tours
Canederli for lunch


Canderli Trentini or Knodel

These are large gnocchi made with stale bread, milk, flour and egg, and flavored with a variety of different ingredients including salami, speck, spinach, nettles, cheese, and parsley. They are boiled in meat stock, and either served in the meat stock as a soup, or tossed in melted butter and served with grated cheese.
Knodel has its roots in Tyrolean cuisine, but canderli trentini are often a bit smaller, made only with white bread, and less fat.


Gratini

Gratini are tiny pasta similar to couscous in size. They are made from breadcrumbs, eggs, and cheese mixed together to form a still dough that is then grated to create its small grainy size. They are cooked in boiling stock, and are done immediately. Due to their dry texture, they keep for several days before cooking.

Nocken

A long thin shaped gnocchi di pane (bread gnocchi) from the Bolzano area. They can be flavored with spinach, buckwheat, beet greens, nettles, and cheese. They are served with melted butter and grated cheese.

Schlutzkrapfen

A semi-circular filled pasta from the Bolzano region, similar to ravioli or agnolotti. These are formed by cutting the pasta sheets into rounds, placing the filling on the round and folding it over and sealing. The filling is most commonly spinach and ricotta, flavored with onion and nutmeg. These are also served with melted butter and grated grana cheese.

spaetzle ski holidays dolomites
Spaetzle in Val Gardena, Italy


Spaetzle

An egg noodle found in the cuisine of the Bolzano region, as well as Austria, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland. The name is rumored to have its origins in the swabian word spitz, or “little sparrow”. Alternative theories claim it is based on the Italian verb spezzare, to break or split. This is a simple pasta, made of eggs, flour, salt and water. A strainer-like device is used to shape the spaetzle directly into the boiling water where they cook immediately. Spaetzle is served as an accompaniment to meat dishes with sauce. It is also used in soups. A rounder, more gnocchi shaped version is referred to as knopfle.

Schwarzplentene Spatzeln

These are small gnocchi made with buckwheat flour, cheese and melted butter. A specialized sieve is used to form these gnocchi.

strangolapreti regional foods italy culinary tours
Strangolapreti at Italian market


Strangolapreti

Green gnocchi made with spinach or other green vegetable such as kale or beet greens, stale bread, milk, eggs and flour. They are served with melted butter, cheese and sage. This dish was traditionally served on Fridays, when religious restrictions forbade the consumption of meat. As the legend goes, priests and other clergy members very much enjoyed this dish, and would eat it until they choked, hence the name strangolapreti, or priest stranglers.

Tirtlan

This filled pasta is made with dough that includes potatoes, white and rye flours, and onions. They are filled with spinach and ricotta.