Luxury opera holiday to the Puccini Opera Festival in Torre del Lago
This is suggested opera holiday with four nights and one performance included. The grand open-air summer Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Tuscany is an opera festival celebrating the life and works of the great Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini. Enjoy a luxury and tailor-made opera holiday at the Puccini Festival this summer and see world-famous performance of Puccini’s spectacular operas, Tosca and Turandot. Puccini was born in nearby Lucca in 1858 but from about 1891 and covering his most productive years, he spent most of his time at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca. By 1900 he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the 'Villa Museo Puccini'. He lived there until 1921 when pollution produced by peat works on the lake forced him to move to Viareggio, a few kilometres north. After his death, a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel, along with his wife and son who died later. The 'Villa Museo Puccini' is presently owned by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, and is open to the public.
Highlights
Stay in a hotel nearby • Performance of your choice at the Puccini Festival • Choice of additional performances • Add on extra nights • Hire-car included for the holiday
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a Standard double room for 4 nights
From about
£1,680 Four star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT02
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury opera holiday to the Puccini Opera Festival in Torre del Lago
You arrive at Pisa airport, collect your hire-car and drive for 20 minutes to your hotel, where you will be based for four nights.
You have three days to enjoy from your base in or near Lucca. There is plenty to see in the town of Lucca itself and there are villas and gardens nearby which are well-worth visiting. A short drive away there are the coastal resorts of Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi, with their long sandy beaches flanked by umbrella pines. Pisa itself is worth a visit or venture further afield into Tuscany, perhaps to Montecatini Terme or the mediaeval town of San Miniato, situated atop three hills. Your hotel is renowned as a spa hotel with hot springs and and outdoor thermal pool, so you should allow time to try the spa treatments. Then, on the evening you have chosen, or perhaps more than one, you attend the opera at Torre del Lago.
Depending on the time of your return flight, there may be some free time before you have to return your hire-car to the airport. Or, you may be extending your stay in Italy and travelling on to another destination.
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a Standard double room for 4 nights
From about
£1,680 Four star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT02
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
● Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a Classic double or twin room at the Hotel Bagni di Pisa, San Giuliano Terme
● Scheduled flights with British Airways London to Pisa return, economy
● Hire of a Group B car for five days
● 2nd sector seats for an opera performance
● Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
Call us on 01392 441245
Puccini festival 2024 programme
Tickets at Puccini Opera Festival
Le Villi Edgar
12, 19 July
Turandot
3, 10, 17, 23 August
La Boheme
20, 27 July | 8, 22 August
Madama Butterfly
31 August | 7 September
Manon Lescaut
13 July | 2 August
Tosca
28 July | 9, 18, 24 August
Ticket prices for the performances vary from about £50 per person for a 4th sector seat to about £200 per person for a Gold seat. Many opt for a 2nd sector seat at about £110 per person. Tickets must be prepaid at the time of booking and are non-refundable. (A handling charge is added to the face value of your ticket if you ask any agent in the UK to make the reservation for you). The organisers reserve the right to change the programme.
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a Standard double room for 4 nights
From about
£1,680 Four star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT02
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
• Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a Classic double or twin room at the Hotel Bagni di Pisa, San Giuliano Terme
• Scheduled flights with British Airways London to Pisa return, economy
• Hire of a Group B car for five days
• 2nd sector seats for an opera performance
• Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
The journey and how you get there Pisa is served by direct flights from London Heathrow with British Airways that operate daily, with more than one flight a day. San Giuliano Terme is about 20 minutes’ drive from Pisa airport. From San Giuliano Terme it’s about 30 minutes’ drive to Torre del Lago, where the opera festival takes place. The hotel is also only about 15 minutes’ drive from the historic city of Lucca.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury opera holiday to the Puccini Opera Festival in Torre del Lago
Hotel San Luca Palace is an exclusive 4-star deluxe hotel in an excellent central location. Comfortable, traditional accommodation and friendly service make it an ideal base to explore the mediaeval city of Lucca.
Classic double or twin room
The Bagni di Pisa is a 5-star, boutique hotel with an exquisite spa heritage. The decadent interiors and tranquil pool, gardens and surroundings and gourmet dining facilities afford guests a truly indulgent Tuscan experience.
Classic double or twin room
Special offers
Call to make your booking and save an extra £50 per adult Call us instead of emailing us when you are thinking of booking a holiday and save an extra £50 per adult (in addition to any special offers that might be available). We want to talk to you to discuss your requirements and a phone call is usually the best way for you to define what you want enabling us to respond more accurately. We want to talk to you and you save an extra £50 per adult.
It was an excellent holiday - due to excellent planning on your side. Super efficient, very professional.Mrs F, Holiday to Norway, Oct 2023
Holiday price guide Sample prices are per person based on two people sharing a Standard double room for 4 nights
From about
£1,680 Four star hotel
Holiday Code FHIT02
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Our prices include
• Four nights’ bed and breakfast in a Classic double or twin room at the Hotel Bagni di Pisa, San Giuliano Terme
• Scheduled flights with British Airways London to Pisa return, economy
• Hire of a Group B car for five days
• 2nd sector seats for an opera performance
• Concierge service and Expressions Holidays regional helpful hints
The journey and how you get there Pisa is served by direct flights from London Heathrow with British Airways that operate daily, with more than one flight a day. San Giuliano Terme is about 20 minutes’ drive from Pisa airport. From San Giuliano Terme it’s about 30 minutes’ drive to Torre del Lago, where the opera festival takes place. The hotel is also only about 15 minutes’ drive from the historic city of Lucca.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury opera holiday to the Puccini Opera Festival in Torre del Lago
About Tuscany
An Expressions tailor-made holiday in Tuscany allows you to appreciate its classical landscape of rolling hills and vineyards dotted with olive and cypress trees, its misty green-grey mountains that are never too far distant, and hill-top towns of rich brown and gold stone houses. This combines with the beauty of the works of art contained in the towns and villages throughout Tuscany to create an inspirational union of the spirit and the senses. There is an intrinsic comfort in the supposed contrast between the delicacy of a Botticelli and the heartiness of Ribollita soup, yet both are typical of this fascinating region. As birthplace of the Renaissance, the impact of Tuscan and particularly Florentine traditions and culture on European heritage is fundamental to our way of life. In addition to the obvious attractions of the scenery of Chianti and the art cities of Florence and Siena, there are the less well-known regions south of Siena with its moon-like landscape of hills, the patchwork vineyards of Montalcino, the coastal marshlands of the Maremma, the spas of Montecatini and Saturnia, the islands of Elba and Giglio, and the Casentino with the source of the Arno and abundant mushroom crops. Wherever you travel on holiday in Tuscany, you will be inspired by the beauty of your surroundings and the way of life, which is quintessentially that of Italy too.
Highlights of Tuscany
Famous vineyards producing wines of Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Alabaster is produced in Volterra. Gold and silver are worked in Florence and the Ponte Vecchio is lined with jewellery shops. Marbled paper and stationery is a speciality of Florence. Ceramics and hand-painted majolica from raw terracotta from Impruneta to the glazed pottery of Siena are to be found throughout Tuscany. Lucca has traditionally produced silk and hand-woven fabrics. Leather goods including shoes, handbags and belts are to be found from market stalls to designer shops such as Gucci and Ferragamo. Interesting markets include the Mercato dell' Antiquariato which sells furniture from antiques to bric-a-brac in Arezzo on the first weekend of every month, in Pisa on the second weekend and in Lucca on the third weekend. The 'wild' Maremma is known for its long-horned white cattle and cowboys (butteri) and natural springs including Saturnia.
Cultural highlights of Tuscany
As birthplace of the Renaissance, Tuscany contains a wealth of treasures: Giotto`s Campanile and Brunelleschi`s Dome in Florence, the Tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo in Florence`s Santa Croce, Botticelli`s `Birth of Venus` and `Primavera` and the portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca in the Uffizi, Michelangelo`s `David` in the Accademia, the architecture of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, `The Tuscan Maremma` painting by Giovanni Fattori in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Piazza del Campo in Siena, `The Legend of the Cross` frescoes by Piero della Francesco in Arezzo, `The Creation` fresco by Bartolo di Fredi in the Collegiata in San Gimignano, Romanesque church of the Collegiata in San Quirico d`Orcia, 14th Century Fortezza of Montalcino, Renaissance masterpiece of the church of Madonna di San Biagio at Montepulciano, the abbey-church of Sant`Antimo, mediaeval Lucignano and the towers of San Gimignano, the Etruscan Museum in Cortona.
Festivals in Tuscany
Many of Tuscany`s festivals resound with the flamboyance of the Renaissance and keep Tuscans and visitors alike in touch with the region`s rich history. Others are linked to Tuscany`s hearty traditions of eating and drinking. The most famous is Siena`s Palio which takes place on 2 July and 16 August each year. Others include the Sagra del Tordo (Festival of the Thrush) in Montalcino on the last Sunday in October when there is an archery contest and charcoal-grilled thrush are a delicacy. In Florence, Calcio in Costume (a football match played in mediaeval costume) takes place in June. Pisa has the Giocco del Ponte (Game of the Bridge), a mock battle in Renaissance dress also held in June. Viareggio celebrates Carnival on Shrove Tuesday with a huge display of flamboyant floats. In May and August Massa Marittima holds the Falcon Contest.
Gastronomy in Tuscany
Simple country food is at the heart of Tuscan cooking. Regional dishes include Bruschetta (bread or ciabatta toasted and rubbed with garlic, olive oil and salt), Ribollita (bean, cabbage and bread soup), Pasta with hare or wild boar sauce, Porcini mushroom and truffle dishes, Bistecca all Fiorentina (thick cut of sirloin and fillet beef), Cantucci (almond and honey biscuits) served dipped in Vin Santo, Panforte (chocolate, nut and spice cake). Pecorino cheese made from sheep's milk. Local wines include the white Vernaccia di San Gimignano and the Bianco di Pitigliano. Famous reds include Chanti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Vin Santo made from semi-crushed grapes left for several months is an excellent dessert wine.
