Brett Poirier and Wonder Walks take you to the wondrous mountains of Tuscany, amid valley streams, marble cliffs and views of the central ridges of Italy to the east and to the west the Mediterranean Sea.

Brett has been guiding outdoor tours for thirty years – walking, bicycling, and canoeing – in the U.S., Central America, southern Europe and Britain. An avid outdoorsman from his teens, with a passion for outdoor recreation and natural history, Brett invites fellow enthusiasts to join him on an exploration of parts of Tuscany unseen by all but a few tourists.

Twenty minutes from the jewel town of Lucca in northeast Tuscany is your home for a week, the farmhouse Selva. Located on a thousand-acre wine and olive oil estate, Selva provides easy access to the Garfagnana and the unspoiled mountainous areas of the Alpi Apuane, the home of grottoes, springs, flower-strewn meadows, cinghiale (wild boar), Michelangelo’s marble mountains, and panoramic views of the Mediterranean.

You will connect with the natural world of ancient Italy – as well as the human history of Tuscany and the people who live there now.

• You will hike through chestnut woods and flowered meadows, over stunning mountain passes and rocky ridges, along creeks fed by mountain springs, with views of charming hilltowns, craggy mountains and the Gulf of Poets in a corner of the Mediterranean. You will lunch at refuges, explore a nature reserve and roam through olive groves and vineyards.
• One morning you will also hike from the farmhouse Selva to the home of the estate shepherd to watch his wife work the magic of pecorino (sheep) cheese and exquisite ricotta.
• You’ll have a cultural tour of Lucca and walk its famous Renaissance walls.
• You’ll have a cooking lesson with our chef Emanuela, enjoy a cheese-tasting with one of the top cheese vendors in Italy, experience a wine tutorial and tasting of Colline Lucchese DOC wines with our sommelier, and listen to Puccini’s music in a Romanesque church with excavated Roman ruins.
• Other highlights includes pizza night, where you design your own pizza and bake it in our wood-fired oven, and experiencing the very best cappuccino in the world at our favorite coffee bar.
  To see a sample week for this course, please click here