Reflections on Martin Randall

We booked our gastronomic tour of Piedmont with Martin Randall, an English tour firm, after seeing a number of beautiful black print advertisements in the Weekend Australian Review. The advertisement for this tour clinched the deal. We were impressed with every aspect of the preliminary steps for signing on, some of which were handled by their Australian agent. The documentation is extensive and minutely timed and, since eating was an important part of the tour, an advance complete set of menus was supplied as we set out. There were only 11 tourists, the tour manager and tour expert (the maximum party could have been 22).
The thought and research for the week's experience was extensive, and showed both in the total flow and room for spontaneous and serendipitous extras.
Much can be said about the contribution of two escorts. Charlotte has a degree in French and Italian and writes for the Dorset branch of Slow Food. Her CV says "she enjoys cooking, eating, running and cycling and suffers from an incurable addiction to costume jewellery." We could add that General Monash might have been pleased to have her on his battle planning staff. Marc is a wine food and travel writer who studied English Literature at the University of Exeter. He has co- authored three food and wine books with his wife, and owns a wine importing company. They are an ideal team but won't be going to Piedmont next year. I think at least one of them will be with the Martin Randall 2015 Sicily Gastromic Tour.
Martin Randall runs many international cultural tours and its annual prospectus is eagerly awaited by a large readership. Since booking we have met several friends who have toured with the company and they are uniformly extravagant in their praise.

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