Meet Mark Wolk of A La Carte Italy Tours

Mark Wolk is a business owner, tour leader, and head chauffeur. His business, A La Carte Italy Tours, offers a personalized luxury tour service in Italy.

1. How and when did A La Carte Italy Tours get started as a business?

A La Carte Italy Tours started fourteen years ago in the hope of bringing Italy closer to travelers. We all know that there are many tourists wanting to see Italy and its beautiful spots. The tours we provide are custom-made to suit their every need and interest. We cater exclusively to smaller groups, mainly coming from the USA and Canada, to give them a personalized luxury tour service. We try to give our clients the best service; that is why we have lasted all these years. Most of our clients remember us and even recommend us to those wanting to travel here in Italy. Not to mention our returning clients--some coming back for a second or third tour!

2. What are some of the benefits for travelers who work with you to arrange an individualized tour, rather than participating in a tour with a large group?

When you work with a large group, a lot of time and energy are wasted on organization, waiting, and large vehicle logistics. If you come in a small group--say a couple, a small family, or probably a group of friends up to six individuals--we can provide a tailor-made tour to Italy that is one of a kind. We chose to specialize exclusively in private tours, so our clients can be comfortable with each other and enjoy the trip all throughout.

The real aim here is to provide our clients, mostly Americans and Canadians, a personalized luxury tour to see the different beautiful places of Italy. As this is a private tour, everything is set to fit the clients' requirements. We prepare our proposition for the places to visit day-by-day and decide the places to go and see first. Our clients also have a free hand to drop by preferred places on the way, stop for an unscheduled photograph, etc.

Generally, we allow two weeks or more for the tour to maximize time and the benefits it provides. So it is going to be an enjoyable trip that will make memories.

3. How do you customize the tour for each traveler or family?

Italy is beautiful place to see, be it in huge cities like Milan, Rome, or Venice, or the coastlines like the Amalfi Coast and Sicily. As a private tour company, we have studied and plotted these magnificent tourist destinations for many years to allow our clients to choose the places they prefer to see.

Let us say in the Amalfi Coast tour, we allow our dearest customers to see the West Coast of Italy. We provide them a private local driver who has great knowledge of these places, and we also have local specialist guides explain the rich history and culture of the area.

We suggest ten days to see the Amalfi Coast, Central Italy, Northeastern Italy, Northwestern Italy, a Rome to Amalfi tour, Sicily, and Tuscany. As for most tastes, there are more attractions to see in Milan-Tuscany and Rome, and the private tour should take around twelve days. The Rome-Florence-Venice tour should take fourteen days. To see the best of the Northern part of Italy, the tour should take around fifteen days. To see the best of Italy should take seventeen days.

Our clients are provided with great and comfortable accommodations. They are also privileged as we organize Italian cuisine and wine tasting in the best possible conditions.

The price is variable to suit the number of participants in each tour. We are usually booked ahead well in advance, and we suggest that our customers make their bookings at least three months before the trip. A La Carte Italy Tours is a personalized quality tour service that gives customers the utmost satisfaction.

4. Why did you choose minivans as the chauffeured vehicles for your tours?

A minivan is a great choice for the tour as it is comfortable when it comes to having more people riding the vehicle. Passengers can easily talk to each other, and there is more room for the luggage. It is easier to travel and to see the beautiful places of Italy along the way. Using this vehicle will allow the passengers to see better as it is large enough inside, but small enough for all Italian roads and streets. The minivan is provided with great air conditioning and heat to suit the warm weather or the cold season.

5. What has been some of the feedback you've received from clients who have enjoyed your custom-made tours?

Absolutely all our clients are happy with our personalized luxury service. They are provided with a tour guide and chauffeur that take them to the many beautiful places in Italy. They see truly magnificent tourist attractions at a price worth the effort. As this is a tailor-made tour suited to their requirements, we as the provider make it a point to never miss what is included in the itinerary. The service is great; hence our clients are always satisfied with it.

The most rewarding feedback we received from our clients is their wish to return to Italy. Our clients enjoy our personalized luxury service, and most of them write to us after the tour to keep in touch.

We love to share our love for Italy. One of our clients enjoyed visiting Maranello so much with us that he wrote to us from the cruise ship that took him back home to the USA. He admitted he had just purchased a Ferrari on eBay, while at sea! It was a remarkable gesture how this client remembered us and considered us his new-found friends.

Thanks, Mark!

Meet Claudio Ottaviano, Musician and Composer

Claudio Ottaviano is an Italian jazz double bass player, singer, and composer. Claudio is a native of Ragusa, in Sicily, but moved 10 years ago to Milan. This year he released Notturno, an album of italian jazz dedicated to the night, a collaboration with saxophonist Tino Tracanna and pianist Michele Franzini. To learn more about the album, check out this sample on YouTube; it is also available on iTunes.

1. When did you first start playing and composing music?

I started at 4 years old as a little piano student of our neighbor Alberta, and I grew up listening to Bird, Miles, and Ella because my mother was listening to jazz all the time. Then when I was 13, my father asked me, "Would you like to have a motorcycle or a to have a bass?" Well, gave him the wrong answer.

2. What attracted you to playing the double bass, and what are the particular pleasures and challenges of that instrument?

Double bass is an incredible instrument: beautiful as a violin but six times bigger! Except the weight, I love everything about this instrument: the shape, the wood, the deep sound, and playing it gives me real pleasure. The negative sides are that double bass is difficult and requires a life of study, and that an instrument-prosthesis so majestic sometimes can be disturbing.

3. What inspired your album, Notturno?

The album Notturno is a result of coincidences inspired by the night, and the compositions are excuses to let the music express itself. Saxophonist Tino Tracanna and pianist Michele Franzini did excellent work, performing with excellent sensitivity and mastery.

4. As a jazz artist, do you find that collaboration is an especially important aspect of your work?

Absolutely. Collaboration is the core, the essence of jazz! Working a lot as a sideman in many different bands and soundscapes I have the opportunity to change often my perspective and mindset, and I'll tell you, for a person "paranoid-trended" like me, collaboration (literally "to share struggle with somebody") is the cure and, the most important thing, I don't have to pay a psychoanalyst.

5. Do you find that "Italian jazz" has any unique qualities that characterize it and possibly distinguish it from jazz in a more general sense?

I may look unfashionable saying that I believe that you can't separate the person from the place/time, but you know, the ways of Jazz are infinite! In my case I am very attached to Sicily, where I was born, that gave me a bizarre baroque side, and to Veneto, that gave me a synthetic, spiritual view. Definitely, I feel like marked "made in Italy" in everything I do, but especially in my boundless love for melody.

Thanks, Claudio!

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