Golden Circle Retreats
Tuscany, ITALY
SOLD OUT: June 1 – 6, 2024
Welcome
Golden Circle Retreats aim to take you on a journey deep inside yourself, out of your head and into your body. Through delicious, wholesome food, joyful movement, and connection to the land, your senses will be saturated, and your heart uplifted. We create the container for restoration on a deep level, with slow, shared meals, mindfulness practices, meaningful connections, and inspiration for how to live a more balanced and holistic life. Our five-day experience will bring relaxation and vibrancy to all levels of your being, and we can’t wait to learn and grow alongside you.
We look forward to meeting you in Tuscany, Italy in June 2024, and trust that if you are called to join, that this opportunity is meant for you. Rediscover the joy of being in your body, connect with your food, commune with healing plants, and find the confidence to reignite your own health journey.
In love and light,
Sarah, Erin, & Mikkala
The Retreat
This 5-day revitalizing retreat will restore your balance, cultivate inner peace, and nourish your body from the inside out. Learn to take care of yourself on a deeper level, and feel empowered moving forward knowing what optimal wellbeing looks like in your life beyond our week together.
We start each day with a centering and invigorating physical practice, led by Mikkala Marilyn Kissi of Living Yolates, flow into an intimate cooking class or nutrition workshop with Sarah Britton of My New Roots, then learn how to incorporate medicinal, healing plants into your everyday life with presence and intention with Erin Lovell Verinder – herbalist and energetic healer. There will be free time to enjoy a refreshing dip in the pool, take a restorative walk in the nature preserve, have a rest or reflection, and connect with other retreat guests. Meals are slow and delicious, and we will offer after-dinner experiences to celebrate our time together.
Join Sarah, Mikkala, and Erin for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the Italian countryside to connect with yourself and like-minded, women-identified people, from all over the world. We can’t wait to welcome you to this special Golden Circle Retreat.
Itinerary
ARRIVAL
1:30 pm | Mini bus from FLR Airport
3:00 – 4:45 pm | Check in
5:00 – 7:00 pm | Opening Circle
7:00 pm | Dinner
DAY 2 – 5
7:30 – 9:00 am | Sunrise Movement with Mikkala
9:30 – 10:30 am | Breakfast
11 am – 1:30 pm | Morning Workshop with Sarah or Erin
1:30 – 2:30 pm | Lunch
4:00 – 6:00 pm | Afternoon Class with Sarah or Erin
6:30 – 8:00 pm | Dinner
8:00 – 9:30 pm | Group Gathering
DEPARTURE
9:30 – 10:30 am | Breakfast
11 am | Mini bus from Meadowsweet to FLR Airport
The Retreat Package
From when you land in Florence everything is taken care of…
- Transportation to and from Florence at designated arrival and departure times.
- 5 nights accommodation in a room of your choosing.
- 3 fresh, organic meals per day, including snacks, tea and coffee.
- Access to Meadowsweet’s amenities including saltwater infinity pool, natural spring, waterfall hike, sauna, apple orchard, vineyard, and more.
- 3 classes led by Sarah Britton including nutrition lecture, hands-on workshop, and Breathwork.
- 3 movement sessions led by Mikkala Marilyn Kissi including all the styles of the Living Yolates Method.
- 3 classes led by Erin Lovell Verinder including herbal medicine lecture, workshops, and hands-on learning.
- Golden Circle Retreat cookbook and lifestyle guide.
- Exclusive Golden Circle Retreat tote filled with some of our favourite goodies!
- Complimentary access to My New Roots Grow and the Living Yolates Circle the month prior to our retreat to prepare for our in-person time together.
Thoughts from Past Participants
“This retreat came into my life at exactly the right moment, when I needed to rest and recharge – it was deeply nourishing in every way. Most importantly, the experience helped me reconnect with myself and my feminine energy, and to listen to my intuition, something I have struggled with for too long.”
L.L., Canada
“After the Golden Circle Retreat, I have continued to feel much more connected to my body in a positive way. I feel like I have some new tools to process life experiences. I have been cooking even more than I did before. I feel like I know how to better take care of myself – body, mind, and soul.”
B.D., USA
“My posture has changed, the lines in my face have changed, my whole perception has changed. There are not a lot of retreats out there, besides this one, that have such a holistic approach to health.”
Sandra, Australia
The Location
Meadowsweet Retreat is located at Castello Di Fosini in Tuscany, and is nestled in a 2000-acre nature reserve with vineyards, meadow, waterfalls, mountains, and forests.
The rose-scented garden gazing over an untouched valley provides many places to unwind and reflect, be it sipping morning tea on the wisteria patio or sprawling on a luxurious daybed tucked away under a tree.
You will stay in expertly-designed restored farmhouses and cottages that allow the luminous energy of nature to blend seamlessly with the spacious interiors of calming greens and soft natural hues, a stone-carved fireplace, and creamy stone floor throughout.
Meadowsweet is located less than 2 hours from either the Florence or Pisa airports. Transportation will be provided to and from the Florence airport only at select times.
Sarah Britton
The creator of My New Roots and My New Roots Grow, Sarah Britton is a Holistic Nutritionist, whole-food chef, retreat leader, and certified Breathwork Facilitator. Since October 2007, Sarah’s successful blog has inspired eaters from around the world alongside her two cookbooks and mini-series Food Network Canada’s The Substitute Baker. My New Roots Grow is Sarah’s very own wellness platform, an expansive resource for cooking techniques, holistic living, exclusive recipes, breathwork and movement classes, and so much more. Sarah’s deep love for nature’s bounty and seasonality shines through in all she creates and her most recent study and journey into the power of breathwork continues to take Sarah and the My New Roots community to new heights.
Golden Circle Retreats, started by Sarah Britton and Mikkala Marilyn Kissi is a unique global retreat business that brings the beauty of intentionality, seasonality, and passion for the most beautiful aspects of life to women-identified people all over the world.
Sarah is a passionate educator, and loves teaching in person. This retreat will offer intimate, participatory cooking classes, featuring mostly plant-based and gluten-free recipes with plenty of time for questions, conversations, and lots of laughs!
The holistic wellness workshops will help you understand the inner workings of your body, with hands-on skills and practices that will delight and inspire you, well beyond your week together. Sarah’s classes are energetic and fun, as she loves sharing her knowledge of holistic health, and helping people truly find joy in their own wellness practices.
Sarah is a trained Elemental Rhythm Breathwork Facilitator who has guided dozens of people through transformative, life-changing, and impactful breathing sequences. Sarah holds space for the group with love, compassion, and skill, and looks forward to sharing this incredible gift with you too!
Erin Lovell Verinder
Erin Lovell Verinder is an Australian trained Herbalist, Nutritionist, Energetic Healer and author of three well loved plant medicine titles, Plants for the People, The Plant Clinic and The Plant Portal. Erin’s work is to reconnect the people with the plants! Walking the plant path, she is a woman in tune with the natural world, weaving her path as a writer, clinician, mentor and teacher with bushels of brilliant green.
Erin teaches the love language of the plants and is on a full hearted mission to educate and inspire others to heal with the rhythms of nature, through the bounty of plant medicine. Her teachings have been shared far and wide including her recent TedX talk “Herbalism-the quiet rebellion” which highlights how Herbalism is fundamentally a practice of reconnection, to self, to spirit, to community, to creativity and to nature. Erin’s musings have contributed to a new wave of medicinal plant love and health empowerment for so many people. She is an engaging and warm teacher who thoughtfully and intentionally holds space for your process to unfold.
Erin invites you to dance with the land, listen to the messages of the plants, learn accessible and approachable plant medicine making and embrace your inner herbalist. Through hands on classes, nature immersion and shared knowledge, her classes will have you filled to the brim with belonging with the plants and ignite the remembering of simple yet profound practices of herbalism to integrate into your everyday life.
Mikkala Marilyn Kissi
Mikkala Marilyn Kissi, founder of Living Yolates, has training in professional dance, yoga and pilates instruction, certified nutrition therapy, kinesiology and more. Mikkala’s holistic training method combines the best of yoga, pilates, dance, meditation and energy work, all inspired by the wonder of nature’s rhythms and cycles.
Full of vitality, bursting forth with energy and softness, Mikkala has a keen understanding of balance within the body, mind, and spirit and leads her classes with nothing but pure joy and love. Movement, meditation, breathwork, and restoration during Mikkala’s sessions will revitalize you from the inside out. Mikkala believes that you are your greatest teacher, your life’s creator, and by tapping into this power you will be able to live more from a place of trust, intuition, and celebration.
The Food
The week’s menu will be prepared by Meadowsweet’s in-house team in collaboration with Sarah Britton, using local, whole food ingredients – think My New Roots in Italy! The majority of the meals are low sugar, organic, plant-based, and also include the addition, for those who prefer, of morning eggs from a neighbouring free-range farm, and local, organic sheep ricotta. Meals at Meadowsweet are served family style in big sharing bowls, in true Italian fashion!
Sarah’s approach to cooking is creative, fresh, and vibrant, and her passion is bringing out the natural flavours in the ingredients she chooses, while preserving their precious nutrients. She finds a great deal of inspiration through travel, and humbly learning from other cultures and kitchens.
All food and non-alcoholic drinks are included during your stay, and dietary accommodations can be made so long as you let us know at least one month in advance of our retreat.
Accommodation
All of the rooms and cottages at Meadowsweet are designed with nature in mind, preserving and honouring the beauty of the Tuscan landscape.
For this retreat we offer three different options for your lodging. If you are joining with a friend or family member, you have the option to share a room and ensuite bathroom (two separate beds), and if you would prefer your own private space with ensuite bathroom, there are private rooms and cottages available for you. If you’d like a shared room and are joining us solo, you will be matched with another woman seeking the same, and many of our retreat roommates have continued to stay in touch well after a Golden Circle Retreat.
Meadowsweet is a luxury wellness sanctuary and the perfect place to reconnect with nature while nourishing your mind, body, and soul. The accommodation options reflect our commitment to the earth, to slow living, and the importance of deep rest.
Rooms and Rates
Dates:
THIS RETREAT IS SOLD OUT!
June 1 – 6, 2024
Check in 3p on June 1st
Check out 11a on June 6th
Accommodation Options
Prices are per person, space limited to 10 participants
Shared Deluxe Room
Two twin beds, shared bathroom
$4370 USD pp
Private Deluxe Room
One double bed, private bathroom
$4870 USD pp
Private Luxury Room
One double bed, private bathroom
$5970 USD pp
Payment Terms & Conditions
A non-refundable deposit of $750 USD is required at time of booking.
Final payments are due March 13, 2024 and are 100% non-refundable from final payment date to departure date.
Airfare is not included. Transportation to and from FLR at designated times is included. Other transportation arrangements outside of these offerings are not included.
Book Now
Bookings for this retreat are handled via email to our travel coordinator Cathy Wassermann of Wassermann Retreats.
Click below to email Cathy who will provide export support as you fill out your registration forms, choose your room, and to pay your deposit for our Italian adventure, June 2024.
For any questions you may have about the location, programming, or any other concern, please feel free to contact Kaitlin from our team directly at info@goldencircleretreats.com, she’ll be more than happy to support!
(clicking above opens an email window)
Additional Details
In order to create an intimate and relaxed atmosphere for all, this retreat is for women-identified people only, and participation is limited to 10 guests.
Our retreats respect and honour where you are right now in your health journey. The classes and workshops are for women of any culinary skill level and any physical condition. We welcome everyone with open arms. Please write to us with anything we may need preparation for in order to make your retreat as comfortable as possible!
Prices are per person. A separate booking must be made for each person in a group, please note if you wish to share a room with a friend or relative. If not, and you choose a shared room, you will share it with a friend you haven’t met 🙂
All bookings are final with no refunds. We require a $750 USD deposit at sign up which is non-refundable. The remaining balance of your retreat price will be due March 13th, 2024. There is no refund after the balance is paid.
In case of illness or force majeure, we will do our best to find a solution/have another participant take the space and trip insurance is available through our retreat planning company, Wassermann Retreats. It is possible to give your space to a friend, just inform us at least 1 week before the retreat takes place via email info@goldencircleretreats.com.
Flights to Florence, Italy are not included.
Additional food and beverages, and additional services outside of our retreat offerings are not included.
When signing up for a retreat you agree to our general terms and conditions. Have any questions? Please write us an email at info@goldencircleretreats.com
Location: Radicondoli, Italy
Venue: Meadowsweet Tuscan Retreat
Check-in: 3pm
Check-out: 11am
Please note: Early check in is not possible. If your flights do not match our check in time, nor our transportation times, we recommend staying a night in Florence before or after the retreat.
Questions?
Contact us with questions about the classes and retreat programming at info@goldencircleretreats.com
Bookings will be made through our travel partner Wassermann Retreats, an affiliate of Direct Travel, 93 Main Street S, Georgetown, ON L7G 3E5,
TICO 50023504
Contact: Cathy Wassermann
Email: cwassermann@dt.com
Phone: +1 905.873.2000 ext. 1232
(EST – please respect the time zone)