While you may prefer to be based in the countryside, or in one of Italy’s smaller towns, Venice is one of those places you absolutely have to experience at least once in a lifetime. Overcrowded, yes, but still undeniably enchanting thanks to its romantic canals, and...
Great to see Hedonistic Hiking mentioned by Kendall Hill in his piece for Australia's Escape. He hiked with us in September of 2019 on our Parma, Tuscany and Ligurian Sea tour and really appreciated the benefits of travelling slowly in...
We were delighted to be featured in this month's Choice magazine, Britain’s leading independent magazine for women and men over 50. Clive Nicholls joined us in May on our Lucca, Volterra and Elba tour and saw for himself the joys of combining fabulous hiking...
This year, more of our tours than ever before take in some of Italy’s most spectacular gardens. They include a broad collection ranging from one or two of Italy’s less well-known gardens to some of its most celebrated green spaces, including the gardens of the...
In many ways our tours are much more than walking holidays in Europe. Alongside the excellent hiking we delve into the culinary traditions of the areas we are walking, but we also work hard to include cultural highlights too and all our hikes have...
In many ways our tours are much more than walking holidays in Europe. Alongside the excellent hiking we delve into the culinary traditions of the areas we are walking, but we also work hard to include cultural highlights too and all our hikes have...
In May this year we were fortunate enough to be joined for a few days by family friend, Mike Waller, on our tour The Wilds of Abruzzo. Mike works as Conservation Ecologist for the London Wildlife Trust and is something of an expert in...
We have specialised for over ten years now in tailor-made hikes for small private groups (minimum 8 people) along the Great Ocean Walk, Australia's world-famous coastal trail which is a three-hour drive east of Melbourne. The route...
At Hedonistic Hiking we like to get off the beaten tourists trails and explore hidden gems which are usually ignored by the majority of other visitors. Saluzzo is just such a town, lying to the south west of Turin, in the shadow of Monviso, Piedmont's highest...
Right over on the Western edge of the Italian Lakes, where Lombardy meets Piedmont, lies the flawless and beautiful Lake Orta. Much smaller than its closest neighbour Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta is tranquil, restful and has a picture-perfect island in the centre,...
One of the most memorable visits we make on our Slovenia and Friuli tour is to the clandestine Franja Partisan Hospital, buried deep within the Pasice gorge. It is a collection of wooden cabins, the first of which was built in 1943, which housed...
Anyone spending a few days in Southern Italy might like to take some time to visit the impressive Greek temples at Paestum. This remarkable archaeological area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and lies about a mile inland, on the Mediterranean side, south of...
The Secret Splendours of the South The southern part of the Italian peninsula, even in 2017, is much less visited by tourists than the north and remains mysterious and often misunderstood. People might assume that there is not much there to attract the modern-day...
Rotonda is a small medieval town located in the heart of the Pollino National Park in Basilicata, with a population of around 3,500 people. In 2017 a change to the accommodation on our Southern Italy tour means that we will have the chance to spend more...
The first stop on our Wilds of Abruzzo tour is Tivoli, just on the eastern side of Rome, and a visit to the world-famous Villa d'Este and its astounding gardens. A UNESCO world-heritage site, this former palace of Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este...
We have updated the itinerary for our Medieval Umbria tour in 2017 to include a guided visit to one of Italy's most famous fresco cycles, painted by Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. The tour will now start and finish in the attractive town...
On a sunny day in September 1991, two German hikers enjoying a walk in the Ötztal Alps, close to the border between Italy and Austria, decided to take a short cut. They left the marked path and continued past a rocky gully filled with meltwater. Noticing something on...
Our brand new 2016 tour in France and Italy has got me thinking about salt! This is because our route takes us along some of France's ancient salt roads from the Mediterranean over the Maritime Alps and into northern Italy. Since its discovery...
The Pollino National Park is the largest in Italy and straddles both the regions of Basilicata and Calabria, in the instep of the foot of Italy. It covers around 1,960 square kilometres and has the richest collection of flora and fauna in the whole of Southern Italy....
Giacomo Puccini, composer of some of the world's favourite operas, was born in the city of Lucca in 1858 and lived almost all of his life in this part of Tuscany. Born into an established musical family in Lucca, four generations before him had held the position of...