CUSTOMIZED TRAVELS IN ITALY ACCOMODATION WINE TOURS COOKING FLORENCE TESTIMONIALS LINKS ABOUT US TESTIMONALIAS HOME INFO SECRET TUSCANY Travel consultants   Division of Logos Holidays Inc. New York   Email: info@secret-tuscany.com   Contact: Mrs. Mariaclaudia Gherardini Phone/Fax +39-055-291237 Cell phone +39-338-5490672 AUGUST 2000 M. Fass from USA This is M. Fass wanting to thank you for setting up the Uffizi guide last week. She was super and my wife enjoyed the entire experience. Since we go to Firenze often, we will be sure to use you again. SEPTEMBER 2000 E.Way from Florida Dear Mariaclaudia, I hear that you have talked to the family where I stayed in Vinci. Silvia is a wonderful teacher, a terrific guide, and a fantastic cook. I enjoyed my stay with her family because, as in your tour, I saw parts of Tuscany that the average tourist never sees. SEPTEMBER 2001 M.McCarthy USA Dear Mariaclaudia, My best meal in Italy was in Greve. We had garganelli sul sugo di cinta senese at Mangiando Mangiando in Greve. I hope I have spelled that correctly. I very much enjoyed the cooking course that I took while I was in Florence. It was one of the high points of my visit to Italy. I hope that I will be able to take a longer class in the future. Thanks again for being willing to organize a class for one! JANUARY 2002 K.Miyata from JAPAN Cara MARIACLAUDIA Buon Anno ! Come sta ? Ho pensato molte volte di scriverti e ormai siamo quasi un Anno nuovo. I was so happy to be able to see you in Firenze(06/2001). I had a wonderful time in Castello CAFAGGIO and wine tour of secret-tuscany. Everybody is so kind, nice persons! I love Italy! I love tuscany more and more !! I send you a photo. Your smile is so cute. Grazie della sua cortesia. Con la speranza di rivederci presto. MAY 2001 V.SMITH from USA Hello , received your message about music festivale and just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed our wine tour. We just received our wine this week and put it in the cellar. Our wine tour was certainly one of the highlights of our trip. You and Stephanie were delightful ! You asked for comments -I think providing some bottled water during the trip would be nice. NOVEMBER 2002 M.MAFFEO from New Jersey, USA Dear Maria Claudia, I am finally getting a chance to sit down and write you. I am sorry this took so long, but I am sure you know how busy it is when you get back fom vacation. (And Christmas season, too!) Our evaluation of our trip is AWESOME !!! You and your wonderful staff made a dream come true for me. The vacation was truly perfect. Every driver, tour guide and tour was wonderful. ROME: Driver and tour guide were excellent. They were dealing with weary travellers and first-day jitters and they quickly made us feel welcome and at home. they also adjusted to our needs with grace! ROME/ASSISI/PERUGIA/FLORENCE: Our Driver was excellent. He was flexible with our time and made very good suggestions about going to Perugia instead of Todi, because it was Sunday and everything was closed. FLORENCE: Our walking tour guide was very knowledgeable about Florence and was kind enough to adjust her touir to the needs of our varied group. She was very pleasant and enjoyable. SIENA and SAN GIMIGNANO/WINE ESTATE: This also was a perfect day. Our guide was fantastic! She was perfect for our group and also excellent company! Our tours were exactly to our liking and the wine estate was beautuful and we felt as if we were visiting the home of friends! FLORENCE/MONTEPULCIANO/ORVIETTA/ROME: The only day of rain!...no complaints we were very lucky. Unfortunately, it was raining too ahrd to see Montepulciano. We will have to come back! Orvietto was beautiful and we had a lovely lunch there. Again our driver was perfect, helpful and safely returned Heather and her friend to Florence for the end of an absolutely perfect vacation. Mariaclaudia, you listened to our needs and provided a life long memory for our family. We will never forget it! Please send me your company info so I can recommend you to friends and Travel Agents. We miss our Florence and look forward to a return trip soon. Please keep in touch! I feel as if we made a new friend! Warmest regards! APRIL 2002 F.S. from FLAGSTAFF ARIZONA Dear Mariaclaudia, We are home after a very long plane ride but everything went very smoothly. I just wanted to thank you again for everything. You are so wonderful. I am definitely planning on staying in touch and I will continue to remind you that you are very welcome in Flagstaff Arizona. We loved Cinque Terra and 5 days was perfect. Two days were very rainy but the other days were perfect for hiking and sightseeing. We took a train and boat to Portofino one day which was fun and we did the hike for 6 hours also. The hotel was wonderful and I would definitely recomment it to anyone. The managers were wonderful and the views were terrific. Again, thanks so much for all your help with this stupid plane ticket of my son. What a night mare!!! Take care. Warmly. JULY 2002 JEANNE, BRIDGET, KANDI, MERRILEE from SOUTH AFRICA Hello Mariaclaudia, I am attaching the picture that was taken at our luncheon - I hope you enjoy it! I had such a wonderful time that day. Thank you so much for making it possible! I brought back a few bottles of wine from the vineyards I visited and have already opened one delicious bottle! I learned so much more about wine from this tour, especially at the vineyard you also visited. The opera at Torre del Lago was beautiful! Andrea Bocelli and Maria Pia Ionata did a wonderful job of portraying their characters...and the singing was very lovely. Thank you again for all of your help! Best wishes, Jeanne Dear Mariaclaudia We had a lovely day at Rincine - thank you for organising it for us. It was a very pleasant surprise to have Marco collect us in his smart car and bring us up those winding little roads to Rincine. He was a very good driver and taught us some lessons about hooting at the sharp corners (we needed that for when we drove to Castellnuovo Magra later in the week. I loved the horse riding and Christina and I managed to have a nice conversation (between my shaky Italian and her little bit of English). We were pleased that you could join us for that wonderful lunch (wish we had taken a photo of the bistecce!!) It was great meeting you in person and getting to know more about you and your business. Sorry you couldn't make it to Madama Butterfly at Torre del Logo - it was beautiful evening and Bocelli was especially beautiful!! He sang and acted well and his voice was as lovely as ever. I bought a nice bottle of Brunello di Montalchino there for my husband, but we won't drink it for a few more years. I arrived back in South Africa today. Thanks again for everything. Hope we have the chance to meet again. Best wishes Bridget MAY 2004 - A. SIEBER from MICHIGAN Dear Mariaclaudia, How are you? It has taken me a few days to get used to being back home. I can not stop thinking of our stay in firenze, (I'm sure you hear this from everyone afterwards), however the feeling I have for florence is like know other place we have been. We have been lots of places but firenze felt like home to me. The caffe's, piazza's, the art and architecture, but mostly the people and lifestyle won me over. I want to thank you for making our stay there so perfect. The Arancio apartment was magnifico. We loved all of the activity around us and getting our caffe and brioche across the via every morning. I have to say one of the highlights of my trip was the picnic you planned, and meeting all of your very special friends. It was a great afternoon, and It meant alot that you took time from your busy day for this. It was also very nice of both of you to set us up with a phone, I felt relief to be able to connect with my children. Well I was trying not to write a novel however I felt I had so much to say to you. I really felt such an instant friendship with you. I hope to see you in Firenze in the near future. Thank you again, for everthing. JUNE 2004 - ISUZU INCENTIVE: DINNER WITH FLORENTINE FAMILIES AT THEIR HOUSES Mariaclaudia: I want to extend to you my personal appreciation for arranging the fabulous evening for our Isuzu dealers with the Italian host families. Every one of my guests felt that evening was one of the highlights of their trip to Italy. We have just returned to the United States and are settling into our everyday routines. My memories of Italy are very special and I look forward to returning. The Italian people that I had contact with were very friendly. The food was terrific. The prices were high, however, with the Euro being so strong. Maybe when the exchange rate is better, I will return. Please thank your mother for her hospitality and the wonderful meal she prepared. If you ever come to the Southern California area, please contact me. My wife and I would love to see you. MARCH 2005 - KNIGHT GROUP FROM LOUSIVILLE Thank you so much for all you arranged for us for our visit to Florence and the lovely Tuscan countryside. We enjoyed meeting you and the trip was fantastic. I cannot tell you how much we enjoyed the wine tasting. I hope we did not stay too long at their home, but we all were having such a great time, the minutes just slipped by. That was the highlight of our trip! We did not have any idea how wine tasting are done in Tuscany. In our area, you go into a wine shop, and they give you a glass and then you start tasting while standing at a counter. So we were so suprised to find out how gracious your wine tastings are. I really thank you for all your work. The van was great. We enjoyed Venice and Pisa, but as I said, the wine tasting was the highlight. I cannot wait to come back to your region again, and I am sure we will. Please keep in touch and if you are planning any trips to our region, I would love to show you our wine country-the countrysides are very similar-all rolling hills and windy roads. Oh, we did stop at the village, Panzano, for the street festival and thoroughly enjoyed that. Thank you so much for including that. Once Again, thank you so much, and please thank Francesco and his family for their very warm welcome and opening their home to us. OCTOBER 2005 MARY M. NY Group cooking class at our chef's private house. The afternoon was pleasant but, the mood of the group was not. Months before, 15 of us had decided to try a cooking class. The 7 remaining were going to join us for the dinner we cooked. The day and time arrived and I had the EXTREMELY strong sense that all were regretting this idea, and reluctantly we took off to class. The ride was one of the prettiest of our vacation and our destination, Trecento, was a lovely and very small town. The streets were so narrow, that, in a few spots, traffic could only go one way. I had chosen this cooking school from a Slowtrav list (...). To read the entire interesting trip report please visit the website of Slow travel at: http://www.slowtrav.com/tr/tripreport.asp?tripid=838&index=12'