JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
Join Chris On A Terrific Trip To Italy!
You know, I've been telling you about this, uh, this once in a lifetime trip that I, and hopefully you are taking with me next fall. Um, and it's chock full of, look, it's the best of the best. It's the Amalfi Coast in, in Italy. And I want you to be there with me because there's been a lot of hard work done behind the scenes to make sure that these trips are crafted in a way that, that it truly is once in a lifetime, that, that you have to experience it in this way to get the full effect. And my friends over at conservative tours have done a wonderful job of putting this together and the, the host of conservative tours and who will be our gracious host when we make this trek over to Italy is Ken Chason. He joins with this afternoon. Kenny, it's a, it's great to have you. Man, I am so excited for this trip. Yeah. Well, you sound excited, Chris. It's a good thing. And, yeah, it, uh, everybody should be excited, uh, who has an interest, um, or who intends to join us. It's just special. And you just, as I like to say, you cannot go wrong on a luxury tour to Italy. And, uh, this is a case in point. We've been doing this itinerary. We did it actually seven times this year for different, uh, cities around the country service, uh, servicing other conservative groups. And, uh, it's just magical. And, uh, in fact, we get a whole lot of returning guests and that'll give you some idea. Of course, you say the Amalphy Coast for folks who've never been, they have a pretty good idea. It's absolutely one of the most breathtaking locales on the planet Earth. But the other side of the tour, it's sort of a 50/50 split is what we call the beautiful region of Pulia, which of course is almost unheard of for most Americans and frankly, for a whole lot of Europeans. But we'll tell you a little secret about Pulia. There are two places in Italy where Italians light to vacation. One is the island of Sardinia, Sardinia, I think we call it in English. And the other place is the region of Pulia, which is not too far from the Amalphy Coast. So it's very convenient. It's just across the peninsula. And it's, uh, we would call it the heel of the boot of Italy and it's an absolutely splendid region. So it's, it's 11 days, uh, on our beautiful Mercedes coach. Uh, I guess we're really only staying in two hotels, which of course is something that pleases the guests and they have beautiful luxury properties as usual. Um, and it's all the sites we're going to see in both the Amalphy Coast and Pulia that make this like all events in Italy on a luxury caliber. So enjoyable. So when, when it, when you go into planning this trip and you talked about you've done this a number of times now, but, but when you go into planning this trip, what goes into that? Because when you're talking about, uh, this type of trip, you, you spare no expense in terms of the luxury that you provide your guests. So talk to me about how you craft a trip like this. Well, I'll be very honest. Uh, I can't take, uh, uh, much of the credit because I've partnered, uh, 22 years or so ago, I talked to my, uh, when I wanted to develop Italy, I talked to some colleagues at Air France. I said, this is what I want to do in Italy. Can you give me some context? I met my partner Lorenzo and he and his brother, Giuseppe, uh, we've been together ever since. And now their sister Orbenas in it and the fourth in our, uh, in our, uh, group there are, our tour leaders would be Marco. He's the, he's the funny one, but, uh, the credit goes to my team of tour leaders, my partners in Italy, my colleagues in Italy, and Lorenzo is sort of the king. He's well known in America by virtue of all the, uh, guests we've brought to Italy over the years. And I say that because it's so enhances the tour. This is an escorted tour and, uh, which means basically you don't have to do any planning. It's all done for you. Uh, but to answer your question a little more directly. Uh, I want, if I'm going to Italy, I want Italians to run my tour. And that's the point. They know all the secrets. They know where to go. I mean, Lorenzo Giuseppe, Marco, homeena, either one of them could run this tour as my buddy, Rush, would say, with half his brain tied behind his back. They're that good at what they do. And I, and I don't just say that. I'm not just bragging. It's because people will talk to me. They'll come right up to me during a tour after a tour. If I'm not on the tour, they'll write me and they'll say things like, like we're doing right now. Many of the people, for example, on our Philadelphia tour to your destination, the Amalfi Coast, last April, they're calling to sign up for next April. We're going up north to the Italian Riviera with them. And you know what they say, Chris? They say, we were with Romina. We want to be with Romina again, or we were with Lorenzo. We only want to come on the tour if we can have Lorenzo as our tour leader again. I've heard this for 22 years. It makes a great difference, but that's why they don't just craft a great tour. They just know everything, all the ins and outs, and they put their heart and soul into it. And it shows, and people love that. People appreciate that. As I like to say, in all honesty, because I'm very frank, you're going a great distance. You're investing a lot of money. You want to do it right. And there is nobody better in Italy than my four tour leads. They are the best. And that's why that's how so much goes into this. It sounds like it sounds like WJR folks are calling right now. Good. Good. Well, look, here's the thing is, is yes, it's a lot of money. But if you were to do this trip by yourself, if you were to, if you were to plan this trip and plan it out by yourself, you're talking about a whole heck of a lot more money. So it's a deal when you're talking about going to, in my opinion, there's no place in the world like the Amalfi Coast, and you've got Poolea, and you've got, uh, Al Barabello, you've got the Isle of Capri, you've got Sassy, you've got all of these wonderful places that you're going to expose people to. Right. And, and, uh, of course, you go to, you go to the Amalfi Coast for the stunning, unrivaled beauty, um, for the, for the, not the autograph, for the lemon groves, for the Isle of Capri, looking out from your beautiful hotel balcony at the Bay of Naples, for the sunsets. And then, of course, the dining. It just never ends on the Amalfi Coast. But yeah, it's all about the beautiful, the azure, uh, the blue azure sea that you're looking out on or taking the boat ride to and from, uh, to Pozitano, for example, it's all about that. But then when you do the other side of Poolea, yeah, it's the, it's the olive groves. Before I ever went into Poolea, I was kind of expecting a little more of the terrain of Sicily, a little drier, a little more arid. And it's actually not that. It's actually very verdant and it's rolling hills of olive groves everywhere you go. And then you get into these famous villages. Uh, many of them UNESCO heritage sites, like Alberto Bello, where the famous Tulea, the Tulea, those white conical houses, then you get into Matata, which is often compared to Jerusalem because it looks a lot like Jerusalem. That has the famous Sazi district in the ravines, the Sazi district was simply essentially, they were cave dwellings for many centuries and they've got one preserved and we can actually visit it when it's there. But these are famous locales and they're wonderful because they're never crowded. And then my favorite, one of my favorites in all of Poolea is Astuni. You're on this wind swept hill. It's always sunny. It's always beautiful and four miles away, you're looking out at the Adriatic Sea, which of course is the other side of the peninsula. And it's another great reason, of course, we incorporated Poolea is not just for all the special sites, but also because it's wonderful to discover something new when you travel. And that's what you get when you're doing Poolea. And then, and then let me tell you, Chris, when we do wineries at conservative tours, but particularly when we do wineries in Italy, we don't just go to sip some delicious wines. We go and we incorporate a dining event into the winery visit. And let's be honest, as Americans, it's wonderful to go to a winery and learn a little bit and taste some great wines that maybe buy a few bottles. But when you wrap that around a banquet dining event, it's a, it's an episode in those 11 days that you will not soon forget. Kenny, I am salivating currently. I cannot wait for this. I know that people are excited. It's 888-733-9494, 888-733-9494. You can call now to book toll three and go to conservative tours.com. You can check out the itinerary and get all your information there. Can I can't wait? I'm so excited. We'll talk again down the road, but I know people are going to be excited for this. So thank you for your time. You bet. Thank you, Chris. Yep. You got it. That is Ken Chase, the host of conservative tours. And again, I want you to be there with me. 888-733-9494, or head on over to conservative tours.com. It's the Amalfi Coast. Like you just can't experience it anywhere else. The food, the views, the wine. I want you to be there with me. All right. We'll take a break. Come back for more right here on JR afternoon.
November 19, 2024 ~ Chris talks with Ken Chase from Conservative Tours about next years trip to the Amalfi Coast of Italy. What will you see and how can you get a ticket to join Chris?