GROUP special cooking classes 2023 at Rita’s farm

Cooking class assistant at Arianna & Friends' and farm manager

Olá amigos! I am Rita, an enthusiastic collaborator of Arianna and Friends for 8 years now. I was born and raised in Porto (Portugal), but I have spent many years living in Tuscany. I got in love with Italy and especially with this region for several reasons. Many of them are the ones that make you visit it: healthy environment, good food and wine, magic sceneries...but let's be honest... I majorly got in love with a handsome Italian man! Together with my husband Aronne, pursuing our passion for nature and animals, I manage a small organic farm in the countryside of Montefoscoli, a little typical village 15 min far from Arianna and Friends' office, surprisingly full of history. At my farm I will be your guide if you book a group cooking class and we will spend a nice time together preparing traditional Tuscan food or baking some pizza in our historical wood oven. Our most important production is organic extravergine olive oil, which we use in every cooking class. You will also be enjoying some of our wine, vegetables and herbs. You can visit us not only for a cooking class, but also for an olive oil harvest and tasting, a picknick in our oakwood or just as a brief stop during your tour. Whenever you visiy ud Maria and Giona, our young children, will be welcoming you with joy! But most probably the first ones saying hello to you will be Pinto and Elsa, our very friendly dog. Together with them, you will also be surrounded by hens, chicks and roosters, a couple of donkeys, two cats and a few bee hives. You will go back in time and learn how it was back here almost 200 years ago. I am looking forward to have you here and tell you all about it. See you soon!

Founder and owner at Arianna & Friends'

And that's me, Arianna. When I was a student at the univeristy together with Massimo, we had a dream. We knew already we wanted somehow to spread our culture, but we didn't know in which ways yet. And we knew we needed to first get more educated ourselves, to go deeper in what for us belonged to our everyday life, before making it avaiable to the others. We made a lot of researches, made many contacts, and we finally found a good way to become ambassadors of the Tuscan culture, taditions and lifestyle. Yes, I admit it, the power that moved everything was my passion for food! For good food, and in particular for the good food of my mamma and my nonna, hehehh! It was learning from them that I started thinking that I couldn't miss the opportunity to share all I knew with others. It couldn't be different because here where we live, food IS culture! And so we made up a name for our project, our future business, that had to give this message: spend time with us, your Tuscan friends and you'll feel like in a family and you'll experience Tuscany in a very authentic way. So the name Arianna & Friends was picked as the best choice. Personally, I love planning, making people happy, organizing, having crazy ideas .. so crazy that sometimes Massimo needs to bring me down to earth! I like making sure that people are more than satisfied when they come back home. I'm lucky to have Massimo, Consuelo, Moira, Luca with me along with all the other "boys and girls" that help us providing excellent services, all of us, always with a big smile on our faces :)

Co-founder and owner at Arianna & Friends'

Ciao a tutti! It’s Massimo here. I’m the “first one” of the friends of Arianna in order of appearance, as we first met me when we were… ehm … at the high school! Well, the first “activities” we arranged together were those many teenagers do, like going to rock concerts (long live Metallica!), barbecuing, drinking inexpensive wine, mainly with no understanding of it. In over 25 years we became more serious adults; so serious that we finished university together and we then decided to start a business from scratch, back in 2007, in an area where nothing like this existed before. I am a natural born teacher, as I’ve always liked sharing knowledge on the beauties of the world with other people. When I started sharing the wisdom of the local cuisine with visitors to Tuscany or showing them the rooted traditions behind a wheel of local pecorino cheese, I realized how fantastic my job is. In fact I discovered that being a wine & food guide is a sophisticated way of being a good teacher, so I can’t help but love it! In the A&F team I’m the multi-language guide or assistant in all activities we offer, from cooking classes, to wine & food tours, from Italian language classes to vespa tours. In the low season I deal with the website development and content management. As I am very curious, I spend all my free time travelling all over the world and of course going on learning as much as I can: over the last few years I took part in several seminaries on extra virgin olive oil, I started a three-year course to become a sommelier, I experienced a professional training to become gelato maker and I decided to never give up in learning the Arabic language. Stay connected as we will soon come up with some new great ideas for your entertainment and enjoyment of our beautiful region! Ci vediamo in Toscana!

Tour leader and sales manager at Arianna & Friends'

Ciao Amici!! My name is Luca. I'm in my mid 30s but I'm still the youngest and for sure the craziest guide at Arianna & Friends As all my other colleagues, I am a multi task personality in the company. I take care of bookings, I am one the content managers of our websites and I'm a tour leader. When in season, I lead almost all types of tours and cooking classes at Arianna & Friends'. My favourite ones are the truffle, olive oil and vespa tours. Riding a vespa through our wonderful hills is a must to do while in Tuscany... of course only if you know how to ride a scooter! When I started working for Arianna & Friends, back in 2011, I was only able to prepare a very simple "pasta al pomodoro" (pasta with tomato sauce). Now, after 9 years of cooking classes and thanks to our wonderful cooks, I am a very good chef (but please, don't tell it to my wife!). My motto is "smile you are in Tuscany". I'm happy and very proud when I see people enjoying my country and having fun in Tuscany. Join us! Join me! Let's have fun togheter!!