Press Release
FROM: In-house Media, Public Relations Agent
101 S. Elm Street, Suite 150, Greensboro, NC 27401
(336) 301-0483 Amy Joyner Buchanan
(336) 707-7503 Margaret Bell

MILA Tours to offer international, cultural travel excursions to those places that inspired Ernest Hemingway’s award-winning novels

(New York, N.Y., May 16, 2005) – Ernest Hemingway was a unique sort of traveler. He immersed himself in the culture of every place he visited and wrote vividly about what he saw and experienced. In doing so, Hemingway’s own history became indelibly linked to those places he journeyed.

Now, others have the opportunity to travel and experience the world the way the great writer did, thanks to a new partnership between The Ernest Hemingway Collection and MILA Tours.

MILA Tours, a leader in cultural and educational tourism since 1981, will lead deluxe excursions everywhere Ernest Hemingway traveled or spent time and to every place that inspired his writing. Travelers will visit key Ernest Hemingway landmarks, such as the battlefield where he was wounded in Fossalta, Italy; the streets of Paris; and the Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba.

Ernest Hemingway Travel Destinations trips will involve much more than museum stops and landmark visits. As with Hemingway’s own travels, these tours emphasize culture, education and unique experiences.

Travelers will truly have the sense that they are following in the writer’s footsteps as they make the pilgrimage through Ernest Hemingway’s world, said Dr. Luis Vasquez, the founder and president of MILA Tours.

“We are recreating the world as Ernest Hemingway experienced it,” he said.
MILA Tours is the only company licensed by the Hemingway family to offer tourism packages exploring Ernest Hemingway’s world travels and his literary legacy.

“Ernest Hemingway traveled the world under many guises – tourist, fisherman, war correspondent, hunter, and even as a honeymooner. Until now, people could experience those journeys only through his words,” said David Stickles, brand manager for the Ernest Hemingway Collection. “We’re pleased to be able to offer today’s travelers the opportunity for a more personal exploration of those places that inspired Ernest Hemingway.

“We couldn’t have found a better partner than MILA Tours,” Stickles said. “Luis Vasquez, Scott Schwar and the entire MILA Tours staff have tremendous expertise in international cultural tourism and in the life of Ernest Hemingway.”

Travelers will dine on the same foods Hemingway enjoyed. They will spend time at such places as Mumm Champagne House in France and taste for themselves why “wine is the most civilized thing in the world.” They will walk the streets of Paris, tracing the same path Hemingway took from his flat to Gertrude Stein’s salon. They will experience their own adventures in such places as Pamplona, Spain, famous for the annual bull-running festival that Hemingway described as a “man’s fiesta.” They will reel in their own catches from same shores where Hemingway fished in Peru.
In addition, Ernest Hemingway scholars will accompany each tour, sharing their historical knowledge and leading thoughtful literary discussions about the author’s influences and legacy.

“Hemingway was such a major citizen of the world,” said Scott Schwar, vice president of marketing for MILA Tours and a former chairman and executive director of The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park in the author’s Illinois hometown. “At MILA Tours, we are committed to offering destination travel that is really true to Hemingway’s character and his history.”

For its inaugural Ernest Hemingway Travel Destinations journey, MILA Tours will lead a group of travelers on a deluxe, nine-day trip to northern Italy.

Ernest Hemingway’s time there was significant. He was dispatched to northern Italy in May 1918 as a Red Cross ambulance driver. Two months later, he was badly wounded while distributing chocolate and cigarettes to troops. While recuperating at a hospital in Milan, Hemingway fell in love with a nurse who later spurned him. This tumultuous year inspired A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway’s classic tale of love and war.

Hemingway skied the Cortinal d’Ampezzo resort with his wife Hadley in the 1920s and visited Cortina and Venice often in later decades. During a hunting excursion near Venice in 1948, he met the young Adriana Ivancich who inspired the character Renata in his World War II novel, Across the River and Into the Trees.”

Retired professor Dr. James Meredith, president of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society, will be the expert scholar-guide for the northern Italy tour. Travelers will overnight in Stresa, Verona, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Udine and Venice with day trips planned to Brissago, Switzerland; Milan; Schio; Fossalto; Treviso; Murano; Burano; and Torcello.

Dr. Meredith will lead daily tours and discussions of Hemingway sites in the various cities. Travelers will partake of wine and prosciutto tastings and a variety of sightseeing opportunities. Highlights of the trip include stops at the Gritti Palace and Harry’s Bar, where the Bellini, a favorite Hemingway cocktail, was first mixed. The group will also tour the Venetian Islands, with stops in Murano for a glass-blowing demonstration and Torcello, where Ernest Hemingway enjoyed duck hunting.

Future tours will explore Ernest Hemingway’s Paris, Cuba, Spain, Africa, Peru and China, where the author honeymooned with his third wife, Martha Ellis Gellhorn.

MILA Tours, founded in 1981 by Luis Vasquez, offers deluxe, cultural travel programs for individuals and groups, with an emphasis on Latin America. For more information about MILA Tours, contact Scott Schwar at 800-367-7378.

Ernest Hemingway is a trademark of Hemingway Ltd. and is under exclusive license through Fashion Licensing of America, Inc. For further brand information, contact David Stickles, brand manager for the Ernest Hemingway Collection, at 212-338-0881. Or visit us on the Web at www.ErnestHemingwayCollection.com.

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