Truffles in the Motovun forest
A hunt with local guides and trained dogs in the Mirna valley below Motovun, then the find tasted in a konoba; white truffles from September, black from January.
Istria, the Dolomites and Venice
Truffles on the Adriatic, a summer in the Dolomites, then two nights on the Grand Canal.
- Nine nights
- Three stays
- Croatia, Italy
- Food and wine, mountains, walking, romance
Nine nights that climb from the Adriatic to the mountains and come down to the lagoon: the coast and truffle woods of Istria, the high meadows of the Dolomites in summer, and two nights in a palazzo on the Grand Canal. Every transfer is private, with lunches in Trieste and Udine on the way, a barbecue at the Pizzinini family's own mountain cabin, and a last dinner at an eight-seat kitchen counter in Venice.
- Length
- Nine nights
- Pace
- Three stays
- Style
- Food and wine, mountains, walking, romance
- Route
- Rovinj to Alta Badia, the Dolomites to Venice
- RovinjFour nights
- Alta Badia, the DolomitesThree nights
- VeniceTwo nights
01
Days 1 to 5 · four nights
Rovinj
Met at Venice airport and driven round the gulf, with lunch in Trieste and a guided visit to Miramare Castle. Then a truffle hunt with trained dogs in the Motovun forest, ending in a konoba with the morning's find; the white truffle season begins in September. Near Buzet, a hunt can instead be arranged with a third-generation truffle-hunting family and their dogs in the family's own woods, with the truffles then made into a lunch of gnocchi. A day in the Brijuni islands and Pula's amphitheatre, a food and wine pairing in the Istrian hills, and a boat up the Lim Channel, a film set for The Vikings in 1958, for a swim and a lunch of its mussels and oysters.
Where you stay
Grand Park Hotel Rovinj
Grand Park Hotel Rovinj stands on the town's eastern shore, looking across the harbour to the old town, beside the Golden Cape forest park. Its 209 rooms and suites, designed by Piero Lissoni, spread over six floors, with seven restaurants and bars and the Albaro Wellness and Spa.
02
Days 5 to 8 · three nights
Alta Badia, the Dolomites
North into the mountains, with lunch in Udine on the way. A guided walk at the Cinque Torri and its open-air museum of the First World War, where trenches, tunnels and positions have been restored, and a visit to a deer park with an aperitivo at an old mountain farmhouse. In summer, tastings and lessons in the mountain dishes of the region, casunziei, mezzelune and turtres, can be arranged. A guided sunrise hike, or a day with IFMGA mountain guides on a via ferrata along the cables and ladders fixed by Italian and Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the First World War, for those with good fitness who climb. A guided mountain-bike ride from San Cassiano through the hamlets to the Armentara meadows and the church of Santa Croce, built in 1484 below the Sasso della Croce, for a picnic, and an evening barbecue at the Pizzinini family's private mountain cabin.
Where you stay
Aman Rosa Alpina
Aman Rosa Alpina is San Cassiano's historic hotel, reopened as an Aman after a full renovation, with 51 rooms and suites by Jean-Michel Gathy facing the village or the forest. The Aman Spa has seven treatment rooms and three pools, and Enju serves Japanese shabu shabu.
03
Days 8 to 10 · two nights
Venice
A private walk through the city, a gondola ride, and a cruise along the Grand Canal at sunset. On request, time with a master mask-maker, making and decorating a mask of your own as the history of Venice and its Carnival is told. A morning at the Rialto market with the hotel's chef, and one evening at the Palazzo Kitchen Table, eight seats at an open counter for 10 courses from the Veneto, Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m. On request, a sommelier pours four Veneto wines with cicchetti behind the doors of an 18th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal, belonging to a local family, with stories of the family's history.
Where you stay
Aman Venice
Aman Venice occupies Palazzo Papadopoli, one of the eight monumental palazzos on the Grand Canal, a short walk from Piazza San Marco. Rococo frescoes and reliefs sit with Jean-Michel Gathy's restrained interiors, almost every room looks onto the canal, and the private gardens are rare in the city.
Arranged on request
The Pizzinini family's mountain cabin
From Aman Rosa Alpina, a barbecue at the family's private cabin in the Dolomites.
The Palazzo Kitchen Table
Eight seats at an open counter in Palazzo Papadopoli for a 10-course tasting of the Veneto, one seating Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
The Rialto with the chef
A morning visit to the Mercato di Rialto with the Aman Venice chef.
A Grand Canal palazzo with a sommelier
Behind closed doors in an 18th-century palace on the Grand Canal that belongs to a local family, a sommelier leads a tasting of four Veneto wines with cicchetti, with stories of the family along the way.
Truffles with a family near Buzet
A private hunt with a third-generation truffle-hunting family and their trained dogs in the family's own woods, then lunch of gnocchi made with the truffles found.
Subject to availability.
Ways to make it yours
- A night in Trieste on the way into Istria.
- A day on the lagoon by private water taxi with a guide: the mosaics of Torcello, the lace makers of Burano, and on Murano a private visit behind the scenes at one of the oldest glass factories.
- A third night in the Dolomites, for the cable car to Plan de Corones and Zaha Hadid's Messner Mountain Museum at 2,275 metres, on the history of traditional mountaineering.
This is a sample. The hotels, the pace and the order are where we start, not where we finish: every journey is designed around the people taking it.
Made around you
Most travel is bought. This is designed.
Before anything is booked, we talk: who is travelling, how you like to spend a morning, and the hotel preferences below the obvious, from the kind of bath you like to the time you wake and how much daylight you need in a room. You see options where options matter and clean recommendations where they don't.
The same person remains your point of contact from the first reply to the trip after next. No handovers. No team.
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