About the Founder: Annie Replogle
My love affair with Italy began fifteen years ago, the day I arrived in Florence for a semester abroad. I dragged my suitcases up 90 stairs to a tiny attic apartment overlooking Piazza Santa Croce, took one look from the terrace, and left the bags behind. I wandered the winding streets until I found a busy trattoria, where I sat for hours with a carafe of house wine, paper-thin prosciutto, salty pecorino, ripe figs, and absolutely nowhere to be. Something shifted that afternoon, an unexpected sense of belonging. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the start of a lifelong love.
Eventually, visiting wasn’t enough. Today I live in Rome, I’m married to an Italian, and I’ve turned that love into my life’s work. I’m a Level 1 Sommelier, a Vinitaly Italian Wine Ambassador, and WSET Level 3 certified, and I write about Italian food, wine, and culture for The Infatuation and Italy Segreta. In practice, that means I spend my days eating, tasting, and exploring so that every restaurant, winery, and place I recommend is one I’ve personally vetted. It also means I can open doors most travelers never knew existed: a tasting with a winemaker at an estate closed to the public, a table at the restaurant that never takes reservations, a cooking lesson in an Italian family’s kitchen, or the olive harvest in our family’s grove, followed by a long lunch beneath the trees.
I’m also an aesthete, someone deeply moved by beauty in all its forms, and that shapes every trip I plan: the hotel with the best light, the table with the best view, the aperitivo timed perfectly for golden hour.
When planning your trip, I want to get to know you. Your likes, your dislikes, the things you can't leave without seeing or doing, the meal you have to try before you go. Tell me your perfect day, and I'll build around it, with a few recommendations of my own thrown in. I work entirely off word of mouth, so everyone who travels with me means something personally. I'll take care of all the planning and bookings, but what matters most to me is looking out for you during your travels, the way a good friend would.
