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Chamber group to tour Tuscany
One of the nice things about the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce’s fund-raising trip to Tuscany, Italy, later this year is the flexibility it will provide.
There are three days of guided tours scheduled, but there are also three days’ worth of additional tours that are optional. If somebody doesn’t want to go, they don’t have to. If they want to break free from the rest of the group to explore something that’s not on the itinerary, they are free to do so. Every person on the trip will have the opportunity to tailor his or her individual experience as he or she sees fit.
“We tried to offer a lot of flexibility on this trip,” said Karen Vizena, the chamber of commerce’s director. “For the most part, people are free to explore on their own for lunch and dinner. With the optional tours, people won’t feel as if they have to be stuck doing something just because they paid for it. We want people to get as much out of the trip as they want to get out of it.”
The trip is scheduled for Nov. 3-11. Right now 32 people are signed up, but Vizena hopes to have at least 40 people registered so the Quincy group can fill an entire tour bus. People can register until July 26 to guarantee a spot, but Vizena said people can sign up after July 26, although they won’t be guaranteed a spot.
The chamber of commerce organized the trip with the help of Chamber Discoveries, a travel agency that specializes in assisting chambers to put together large trips.
“They offer great prices and take care of everything - the tours, the hotel, the airfare,” Vizena said. “With this tour, our guide is from New York City, but lived in Tuscany for 15 or 20 years and speaks good English, so it’s the best of both worlds. (Chamber Discoveries) is a great organization because they can supply us better than other agencies could because they’re drawing from a huge pool.”
Chamber Discoveries offers a variety of packages in different locations all over the world, but Vizena said the Quincy chamber picked Tuscany because “it sounded like a fun place to go. People are very, very excited. We’ve got people who are well traveled and we’ve got people who haven’t traveled at all. For one couple, this will be their first trip ever. They figured it would be a good starting point to travel with a group and see what the world has to offer. For a lot of people, Tuscany is a destination that they’ve always wanted to go to.”
The itinerary features a lot of sightseeing. Its highlights include a city tour of Florence, including the cathedral, baptistery and the famous Gates of Paradise; a city tour of Siena and Piazza del Campo; a visit to San Gimignano; and a stopover at the Chianti Wine Festival.
This will be the second trip the Quincy chamber has organized; in 2007, a group went to Beijing, China.
“We wanted to learn from that experience and make sure that everybody gets something out of the trip,” Vizena said.
A percentage of ticket sales will go to the Quincy chamber to assist with operational costs. “We hope to establish a routine with the fund-raisers and have an auction one year and take a trip the next year,” Vizena said.
