ExperiencePlus! Blog


Italy

  • Spring Salad

    This recipe comes to us from our friends at Cooking Vacations Italy and takes advantage of the spring harvest including fava beans, lemon balm, mint, chives, radishes, spinach, lettuce and peas. If you aren’t familiar with fava beans, sometimes known… Read full article

  • Accommodations We Love – Part 6

    We’ve chosen several multi-night stays in this edition of Accommodations We Love. We don’t stay longer at these hotels because we fear you’ll never want to leave! Read up on hotels in Chile, Scotland, France, Argentina, and Italy this month.… Read full article

  • A Healing Journey

    By ExperiencePlus! Traveler Sally LaVenture Our dream had been to ride bikes through the Italian countryside on my 60th birthday. But life got in the way, or really I should say, death changed my reality. My husband, Charley, was diagnosed… Read full article

  • Via Emilia – road to Italian culinary history

    By Jeff Greenwald. Writer Jeff Greenwald joined ExperiencePlus! on a combined and modified version of our Bicycling Venice to Florence and Cycling Italy’s Culinary Delights: Emilia Romagna Plus! Bologna itineraries that featured less bicycling, and a few extra culinary highlights.… Read full article

  • The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior

    by Paul Strathren. Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! traveler Bill Giovinazzo. When we rode across Italy we cycled over roads and through towns that were thousands of years old, areas that have seen the rise and fall of empires, invasions by foreign… Read full article

  • How I Bicycled Across Italy In 12 Days

    By ExperiencePlus! traveler JR Meda June 11: My wife, Cheri and I had waited a year to finally fly from Denver to Frankfurt, Germany on the 1st segment of our dream vacation to bicycle across Italy in celebration of our… Read full article

  • The Tigress of Forlí

    The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy’s most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici By Elizabeth Lev, 2011 Review by Paola Malpezzi Price I grew up hearing the story of Caterina Sforza (as we called her) valiantly defending… Read full article

  • Adventures in Tuscany

    June Wheeler and her partner Peter Herzog hail from the flatlands of Minnesota and completed their 7th ExperiencePlus! tour, Bicycling the Best of Southern Tuscany Plus! Florence in September 2011.  June kept a blog throughout the trip and whether or… Read full article

  • Simplicity In Italy

    Photographer Rebecca Brown is not a cyclist, but was excited to accompany her dad on our 2011 Cycling Coastal Tuscany and made the most of her opportunity to capture the area on film. She beautifully framed this region from the… Read full article

  • Cotechino Sausage with Lentils

    Cotechino Sausage with Lentils Though our recipe is a little late for your New Year’s celebration, we thought we’d go ahead and share this traditional New Year’s dish that combines two of Italy’s culinary symbols for good luck, the lentil… Read full article

  • Panpepato or Pepper Bread

    Though the origins of Panpepato aren’t certain one theory is that Sister Berta adapted a Panforte recipe when Siena was under siege and instead of using fresh fruit, she used more readily available dried fruits. Panpepato is rumored to have… Read full article

  • Accommodations We Love – Part 1

    ExperiencePlus! has added one more piece of information to our itineraries to enhance the fun and excitement of choosing your next bike trip – you can now check out the hotels on each day.  Since we originally launched our website… Read full article

  • Risotto with pears, gorgonzola and walnuts

    Risotto with Pear, Gorgonzola, & Walnuts

    This month’s recipe comes to us from tour leader Enrico Dal Monte who you may have met on tour in Belgium, Italy, France or Spain.  Pears are in season so it’s the perfect time to make this delicious cheesy risotto.… Read full article

  • Pasta making demonstration.

    New Culinary and Cycling Tour in Italy

    If we’ve learned one thing at ExperiencePlus! over the past forty years it is that our cyclists love to eat.  So it was no surprise in 1991 when a group of customers asked us to design a tour that included… Read full article

  • ExperiencePlus! founder Rick Price with Lake Como in Italy

    Exciting Cycling Opportunities in the Italian Lakes

    Tell your friends that you are going bicycling in the “Lake District” and most of them will think of England and the romantic English poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth.  But our Lake District bicycle tour of Italy is pure Italian… Read full article

  • 40th Anniversary Bicycle Tour of Italy

    Back in 1972 ExperiencePlus! offered the first-ever commercial bicycle tour in Italy and on June 6 – 17, 2012 we invite you to help us celebrate our 40-year anniversary with a very special departure of the tour that started it… Read full article

  • Piadina or Flatbread

    Piadina* or Flatbread Ingredients: 5 cups (500 grams) of unbleached flour, soft flour if you can find it 2 teaspoons (10 grams) salt 5/8 cup (70 grams) of rendered lard (or scant half cup of olive oil if you prefer)… Read full article

  • The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa

    Reviewed by ExperiencePlus! Traveler and regular contributor to the Rambler Newsletter, Bill Giovinazzo. In May of 1860 one thousand “Garibaldini”, or Redshirts, sailed from Genoa to Marsala to free the idyllic isle of Sicily from the Bourbons. Leading this group… Read full article