The April 2027 AHOI Grand Tour!

So, over the years perhaps my greatest pleasure in interacting with you, my dear listener, has been the times someone has been to Italy and stopped off to see me. Actually, my star actress Lucy believes they probably come to see her, but that's part of the family debate.

Anyway, I thought, why not make things official and see if we can't get together in a bigger group and enjoy not just a day, but a whole 9 days.

So, that is why, I am happily and enthusiastically announcing:

The April 2026 AHOI Grand TOUR!

An actual, proper, get-on-a-plane-and-come-to-Italy tour. And before you say "oh lovely, a bus trip to Rome with someone's Auntie Margherita" — no. Absolutely not. This is something altogether more interesting.

It's called **"In the Footsteps of Machiavelli"**, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of the great diplomat and writer.

it runs from the **10th to the 18th of April 2027**, and it is nine days of what I can only describe as the Renaissance at its most gloriously unhinged.

We start in **Florence** — naturally — where we'll visit Machiavelli's own tomb at Santa Croce and spend quality time at Palazzo Vecchio, the very building where the man himself once schemed for the Florentine Republic. Then we head to **Rimini**, home of Sigismondo Malatesta, the Renaissance lord so spectacularly ruthless that Machiavelli used him as a cautionary example *and* a role model, depending on the chapter.

From there, **Urbino** — the court of Federico da Montefeltro, arguably the most sophisticated man of the fifteenth century and the inspiration for every "enlightened ruler" Machiavelli ever wrote about. We pop into **San Marino** — the world's oldest republic, which has frankly been getting away with this claim for seventeen centuries and I respect that enormously.

Then it's **Modena**, where we make a private visit to the world's oldest producer of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena — a substance so painstakingly made that it takes up to 25 years to reach its finest form. I find this deeply relatable, almost a decade into a podcast with no end in site.

**Parma** gives us Correggio's astonishing dome fresco — Titian apparently said if it were turned upside down and filled with gold it still wouldn't be worth enough. And then a visit to a Parmigiano Reggiano dairy, because the Renaissance was also about cheese, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

We finish in **Mantua**, seat of the Gonzaga, where Andrea Mantegna painted the Camera d