Experience
A craft with a balance sheet
Four days on four Tuscan companies that do manual work and that all have the same problem: who teaches the craft to whoever comes next, how much teaching it costs, and what happens to the company on the day the last person who knows how to do it retires.
On this page
Fact sheet
- Days
- 4
- Cities
- Florence, Fiesole, Montelupo Fiorentino
- Recommended season
- March to June and September to October
- Group
- 15 to 20 participants
- Language of the visits
- confirmed at the time of booking, site by site
- Schengen days used
- 4 out of 90, counting the day of entry and the day of exit
- Price
- Quotation on request
→ Request a quotation · Download the itinerary in PDF
In the quotation we write which sites are confirmed and which are being confirmed, one by one.
Itinerary day by day
Day 1 — Florence. A school that sells what it produces
In the morning, Scuola del Cuoio, in the Santa Croce complex. People have been trained in leather work there since the postwar years and what comes out of the workshop is sold. You look at the workbench, you ask how long it takes to train a person and how many are still there after the first year. The group visit is paid in advance and capacity is twenty people.
In the afternoon, a two-hour working session: building the profit and loss account of a workshop that trains while it produces.
Day 2 — Florence. An archive that is also a design department
In the morning, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo. It is the archive of a living company, inside the palazzo where the company still is: models, lasts, documents, mistakes. It serves a question discussed afterwards in the classroom: what use it is to a company to keep its own past, in money and not in nostalgia.
In the afternoon, a two-hour working session.
Day 3 — Fiesole and Montelupo. Two companies that opened the door
In the morning, Accademia del Caffè Espresso, in Fiesole. It is the place where a coffee machine maker brought together its industrial history, an agricultural garden and a program of guided visits by product. You look at how a machine company decided to teach its customers' product instead of its own. In the afternoon, Archivio Museo Bitossi, in Montelupo Fiorentino: industrial ceramics, with the sample books and the relationship with the designers who worked for the company.
Day 4 — The comparison and the closing
In the morning, team work. The four companies are compared on a single variable: how they pass on a skill that is written down nowhere.
In the afternoon, eight-minute presentations and discussion.
What you visit
| Place | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Scuola del Cuoio, Florence | Working leather school and workshop, groups of up to 20, payment in advance | Bookable |
| Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, Florence | Company archive and museum inside the historic premises | On request |
| Accademia del Caffè Espresso, Fiesole | Company museum and training center with online ticketing and guided visits | On request |
| Archivio Museo Bitossi, Montelupo Fiorentino | Company archive of industrial ceramics | On request |
What this experience does not include today, and we write it ourselves
In the Florentine countryside the site that would close the circle is a large family wine company, that is to say the case of a company handed from hand to hand across generations without leaving the family. Today we have no booking channel and that is why we do not promise it, nor is it in the price. Anyone looking for that subject specifically will find it covered, with confirmed sites, in Who comes next (4 days, Milan and the Sorrento coast).
What is included and what is not
Included: admissions and guided visits to the confirmed sites, the booking and coordination with whoever receives the group, three working sessions totalling six hours, the materials, one person from the Istituto with the group throughout the experience and the certificate of participation in the experience. Not included: flight, transfers to and from the airport, travel to Fiesole and Montelupo, lodging, meals, urban transport, personal travel insurance.
The season, and why
You travel from March to June and from September to October.
January and February are out, and not because of the cold in the city: the two sites outside Florence are in the countryside, where opening hours shorten in winter and the farming surroundings are at a standstill. A day in Montelupo or in Fiesole in January is a day that yields half as much.
August is out: general closures.
The reason, month by month, is on the Seasons page.
Logistics and capacity
Fiesole and Montelupo Fiorentino are reached from Florence in under an hour by road; the group does not change hotel in four days, and it is one of the reasons this experience is among the simplest in the catalog to run.
The lowest capacity is 20 people, the Scuola del Cuoio's.
The recommended group is 15 people: it is the size that reaches the group rates without going over the access limits of the visits, which at these sites go up to 20. Above 20 the itinerary splits into two slots, the day gets longer and the cost per person does not go down.
Cover
The program includes an accident and public liability policy for the whole stay. The sums insured, the insurer and the policy number are published once it is taken out and are attached to the contract; until then they can be requested in writing, with an answer within two working days.
Do you want it to count as training, with a certificate? This experience can be built into an Istituto program, with classroom hours, a piece of work to deliver and a certificate of attendance. → For groups
Related experiences
A craft, an hour, a price (2 days, Florence) · Selling to the world from a small town (7 days) · From the loom to the shop window (4 days)
Let us talk about this route
We answer within two working days with the dates, the day by day program and the quotation.