About

Taste & Travel Italy

THE FOUNDER

Elena is the founder of Taste & Travel Italy, a passionate traveler and promoter of Italian cuisine and culture, a tour leader and a nature tour guide. She has always been a globetrotter, traveling the world with a rucksack on her back, adverse to package holidays, seeking out destinations off the beaten track.

Born in Milan, with family roots in Puglia, she escaped her native city in 2006 to live in Lecco on the Eastern shores of Lake Como with her family and Irish husband.

With a varied work experience, hostess, interpreter, bank employee, event organizer, working with both adults and children and always with the same philosophy in life:

“Life is only travelled once, today’s moments becomes tomorrow’s memories. Enjoy every moment, good or bad, because the gift of life is life itself”

HAPPINESS COMES FROM EXPERIENCES, NOT MATERIAL THINGS

She believes that it’s living by this quote that we are able to make it happen. This quote is her motto, her philosophy of life, a theme that constantly flows through her mind. She has always been drawn to it, with it’s clean lines and meanings and the quiet peace it brings.

Graduated with a degree in languages she immediately set off with a “round the world ticket” in her hand and a rucksack on her back. Nothing booked, nothing planned only the desire to encounter different countries and cultures, defining the length of stay based on the emotions and sensations that each destination provided.

Taste & Travel Italy

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

It really all began in April 2012 after a trip to Vietnam. She didn’t realize at the time that this marvelous experience would have been the starting point for a new business …

With the objective to do something special for a birthday trip, searching online traveller forums she put together a dream trip to Asia. The journey involved a bike tour through the Mekong Delta passing through the authentic Vietnamese countryside, sleeping in local’s houses, real home cooking, savoring the Vietnamese food and stopping her bike at every occasion to try street food from the local vendors. The love for the Asian flavors continued to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, swapping the bicycle for a motorbike driven by Vietnamese tour guide girls – an exhilarating experience driving along small alleys and hidden quarters, stopping off in carefully selected street food stalls to sample memorable eats.

Returning to Lecco, situated at the foothills of the Alps, Elena realized that the place she now called home had so many elements that just had to be shared with others. The imposing alpine peaks and the endless expanse of water in combination with the variety of local food ticked all the boxes for this new venture.

She opened a local travel agency with the idea of offering similar experiences to travellers passing through Italy and in particular, Milan, Lake Como and Puglia.

Elena believes that eating and cooking one's way through a country is one of the best ways to understand and enjoy a culture. The raw ingredients, finished dishes, smells, tastes and traditions all combine into unforgettable sensory experiences.

Taste & Travel Italy

RESPONSIBLE TOURISM

We believe in a type of tourism based on love and respect for nature and the cultural and traditional forms of the people who live there.

We believe local communities should benefit from our visit and that we should leave places as we would like to find them. We are all aware of the impact that travelers can have in the areas visited and therefore we want to preserve their environmental and social values. Our trips have always been managed responsibly and sustainably.

With our tours we financial support projects for the protection of natural areas give economic benefits to local communities. We believe that traveling must enrich emotionally and culturally. We promote our trips applying these founding principles as much as possible to our participants during travel.

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Taste & Travel Italy

OUR TEAM

The people working with us are a group of certified guides with a genuine interest in sharing their knowledge with others, passionate about their city and its history, have a knack for storytelling, exceptional presentation skills and the ability to deliver information in an engaging, entertaining manner.