Northern Italy Friends Vacation Review: Cinque Terre, Tuscany, Isola Madre, Cooking Classes, Food & Wine

We are a group of six friends and well travelled seniors who wished to tour Northern Italy and Tuscany. All of us had visited Italy previously.  From first contact with this travel team and its owner through the Zicasso referral, we were extremely pleased with the services and have no reservation in recommending the company.
After initial email contact, our trip planner quickly understood our trip requirements, interests, budget, timetable, etc., and put together a basic detailed itinerary that was then revised a number of times as group input required.  The result was a most memorable and enjoyable trip, despite the uncooperating Italian weather!  All hotel selections met or exceeded our expectations - 4 star+ luxurious with scrumptious included breakfasts.  Private drivers were prompt, courteous and helpful.  Guides were impressively knowledgeable, very experienced and generally easily understood (on occasion, the accent, street noise and our numbers made it difficult to hear some comments).  What made it a particularly smooth running tour was the responsiveness that our trip planner and his team had to a few itinerary time changes we requested while we were travelling.  The loan of an iPhone for our use, loaded with our itinerary and other important documents, was very useful and greatly appreciated. Our trip planner personally called us upon arrival and just prior to our departure to ensure we were satisfied with his arrangements....and we most certainly were.