Benelli Italian Experience

Program

1^st Day – Monday: Arrival at Bologna airport. Private transfer to the hotel in Urbino. Accommodation in hotel. Free time for activities. Dinner in a typical restaurant. Night walk in Urbino. Transfer back to the hotel and overnight.

2^nd Day – Tuesday: Breakfast in hotel. For all the group: AM private transfer from the hotel to Benelli Factory. Guided visit of the Establishment: welcome, corporate video and factory tour. Lunch at Benelli canteen. If someone wouldn’t attend the Benelli tour: free time for activities and shopping. For all the group: PM Ducal Palace visit in Urbino with English speaking guide. Dinner in a typical restaurant. Transfer back to the hotel and overnight.

3^rd Day – Wednesday: Breakfast in hotel. For the hunters: private transfer to the Hunting Estate Molleone in Cagli (30 min approx.). Hunting with pointing dogs in the morning. Lunch in the country house or in a restaurant near the Hunting Estate. After lunch free time. For the accompanying persons: private transfer to the Hunting Estate Molleone where they can join the hunters or attend a cooking class in the country house inside the hunting estate. Lunch in the country house or in a restaurant near the Hunting Estate (with the hunters). Transfer back to Urbino. Dinner in a typical restaurant. Transfer back to the hotel and overnight.

4^th Day – Thursday: Breakfast in hotel. For all the group: AM private transfer to the Shooting range to test the Benelli guns.

Lunch near the shooting range. For all the group: PM free time for activities in the area’s surroundings.

Dinner in a typical restaurant. Transfer back to the hotel and overnight.

5^th Day – Friday: Breakfast in hotel and check-out. Transfer to Bologna area for the overnight. During the day possibility for visits and activities in the area’s surroundings of Bologna. Lunch during the visits.

Accommodation in hotel. Dinner in a typical restaurant.

Transfer back to the hotel and overnight

6^th Day – Saturday: Breakfast in hotel and check-out. In due time private transfer to the airport.

2^nd Day – Benelli Factory and Urbino

During your visit to Italy, you will have the opportunity to visit Benelli Armi in Urbino. Ongoing innovation, research, and development of new technologies, quality, and manufacturing excellence: this is Benelli’s philosophy.

The Benelli brothers, founders of the motorcycle factory, found Benelli Armi SpA in Urbino in 1967.

Urbino, the essence of the Renaissance, has inspired a lot of Benelli shotguns, and it is the only place in the world where Benelli firearms are conceived and produced. Benelli produces the most innovative and remarkable firearms. With a company tour, you will have the unique opportunity to see the making of a Benelli rifle.

Guided tour of Urbino, the “ideal city” of the Renaissance, Unesco World Heritage Site, with its splendid historic center.

Ducal Palace, Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche, housing works by influential artists such as Raphael, the Cathedral, the Church of San Domenico.

The history of Urbino has its roots in Roman times, when, due to its important strategic position, it was provided with solid walls and became a fortified city. Urbino’s heyday, however, came in the 15th century, thanks to Federico da Montefeltro.

In those golden years Urbino acquired the monumental and artistic excellence that allowed it to extend its influence to the rest of Europe.

The city became a magnificent princely court, hosting the best that Italian Renaissance humanist culture had to offer at that time: Piero della Francesca, Luciano Laurana, Leon Battista Alberti and Giovanni Santi, father of Raphael.

Urbino’s last great season of artistic and cultural splendour was due to Clement XI, who financed renovations to a number of palaces, churches and monasteries in the  city immediately after his election to the papal throne in 1701.

3^rd – Hunting and Cooking Class

If you love walk-up hunting with pointing dogs, this is your Paradise. Here you will find pheasants, quail, and partridges in the soft hills of the Marche. 300 – 600 meters above sea level, the hunting estate covers approximately 2.000 hectares of rolling hills and temperate forests.

The hunting ground consists of hills mainly cultivated with alfalfa, alternating with oak woods, uncultivated land, lakes, streams, and rivers. In the Marche Region, ancient villages survive, medieval settlements enclosed within walls, castles, and fortresses overlooking the hills. The typical feature of the Marche landscape is a sequence of soft hills that, like waves, chase each other to the Adriatic coast.

Molleone is the perfect place for hunting with your hunting dogs or experience the perfected skills of the dogs belonging to the estate professional hunters.

In the wast area, the dog always remains under the keen eye of its owner. The open landscape allows the hunter to observe the work of his faithful hunting companion. As the season change, the hunter enjoys the everchanging landscape. Franchi Food Academy was established to promote game food by transmitting knowledge of its quality, safety, control and transparency.

Aiming to improve, elevate, and raise awareness of the perception of hunting, it provides information on the importance of this activity in protecting the territory. It promotes food and wine tourism by exploiting new hunting styles.

Franchi Food Academy is aimed at all those who love the pleasure of the table, and seek selected raw materials that, combined with a simple cuisine, preserve all the nutritional values. This collection of resources and activities offers new recipes, small cooking lessons, a list of specialty restaurants and certified distributors, tips, peculiarities and the tricks of top chefs.

https://foodacademy.franchi.com/en/

4^th – Shooting Range and Urbino Surroundings

Benelli Shooting Range “Tav San Martino Top” is located along the valley of the Foglia River, halfway between Pesaro and Urbino. The first clay pigeon shooting system, a specialty of Fossa, was built in 1971 for the will and for the great passion for this sport of Oliviero Pacassoni, still president of the sports association.

Today, Tav San Martino Top has 8 shooting ranges, where you can practice many disciplines including:

• Trap (Olympic discipline)
• Skeet (Olympic discipline)
• Compak Sporting
• Universal Trench

In addition, field 5 (Benelli), allows you to shoot from a high seat of 320cm (5 complete firing platforms).

This tour awaits you to discover Gubbio, one of the nicest city of Umbria that over the centuries has jealously preserved its medieval appearance reflected both in the appearance of the buildings but also in the structure of the streets.

Relive the ancient crafts by visiting the craft stores in the historic center of Gubbio that perpetuate the traditions and arts of the past: pottery, leather, wrought iron, ceramic and chalk, let us guide you through the ancient workshops and organize for you a learning session in one of them.

Get ready to have your hands beautifully involved in art and your senses pleased in seeing and tasting the best cheese and salami of your lifetime.

The complex of the Frasassi Caves, within the Marche Apennines, is one of the most magnificent and fascinating underground routes in the world.

An uncontaminated, hidden and beautiful environment, made up of suggestive spaces rich in extraordinary concretions. A complete underground ecosystem, in which it is still possible to observe the formation of concretions, the drops that dig and build their own architectures and in which life has continued undisturbed for millions of years.

The family-run mill Potti de Fratini is a place where exclusively creates an oil that embraces excellence, value, and authenticity. You will enjoy the mill tour, studying all the production process stages, an exclusive time inside the family olive oil mill.

You’ll be tasting excellent olive oil with wood stove-cooked bread. You will have the opportunity to have lunch at the mill, tasting a selection of typical local products, combined with 100% Umbrian oils and an excellent glass of wine.

You could also enjoy a picnic on the estate with local products, followed by a master class with the chef chocolatier.

5^th – Bologna Surroundings

Ferrari Factory Tour + Lunch at Cavallino Restaurant (Massimo Bottura)

The Ferrari Museum in Maranello also offers visitors exclusive shuttle bus tours to the Fiorano track and along the Viale Enzo Ferrari boulevard in the factory complex. A museum guide will also discuss the various characteristics of the Ferrari track where the Prancing Horse has carried out all its competition and road car tests since 1972.

Likewise the Ferrari Campus, the heart of the complex where all the Prancing Horse cars are built. The buildings and facilities designed by world-leading architects of the likes of Renzo Piano, Massimiliano Fuksas, Jean Nouvel, Marco Visconti and Luigi Sturchio are also fascinating. Equally interesting is the historic part of the factory which has been meticulously preserved, not least the factory entrance which dates back to 1947.

Parma City Tour and Food Experience: Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese and Parma Ham Factory Visits

Following the old tradition, follow the steps for a great Parmigiano Reggiano, handmade cheese. The milk is a special kind of milk, coming from cows fed in a certain way, and this does facilitate the cheese masters’ task, but it does not make it easy. Cheese masters make cheese using their hands and heads. A demonstration is possible early in the morning (approx. 8.30 am) when Parmesans are crafted. Nowadays, the tradition of Parma Ham is as strong as ever.

Only hams produced and cured in the hills around Parma may become “Parma Hams”. It is all about a “big family” of producers (189 firms) carefully watching the production phases following the tradition. Together with a visit to a local Cheese producer, we can combine a Parma ham, “Prosciutto” tasting at a local producer.