Last updated: 21 October 2026.
These Terms & Conditions govern your use of this website. Where you book or take part in a paid guided experience, the sections on booking, participation, risk, cancellations, and liability below also apply; where you purchase the Expert Brief or another trip-planning consultation, Section 14 applies. These apply together with any separate written agreement we provide for that experience or service. If there is any conflict, the separate written agreement prevails.
1. Disclaimer on Content and Safety
All content on this website, including but not limited to hiking trail descriptions, tips, information on flora and fauna, and any other guidance, is provided “as is” and is for informational purposes only.
This content is not professional advice. Hiking and other outdoor activities carry inherent risks, and your safety is your sole responsibility. You should use the information on this website only if you have adequate experience, preparation, and have carefully assessed the current conditions, such as weather, trail difficulty, and your personal physical state.
We disclaim all liability for any injury, accident, or damage that may occur as a result of using this information.
Only our professional, paid services come with specific guarantees and formal agreements. We strongly recommend consulting qualified experts before undertaking any activity based on the information provided here.
2. Specific Disclaimer for Plant and Fungi Identification
The information, photos, and tips for identifying plants and fungi on this website are for educational purposes only and are not a substitute for expert advice.
Many plants and mushrooms are highly poisonous, and some can be deadly. Misidentification can lead to severe illness or death. You must never consume a plant or mushroom based solely on information from this website, a book, or any other non-expert source.
Always verify any identification with multiple, reliable sources and, most importantly, consult with an experienced mycologist or botanist. It is your responsibility to be 100% certain of an identification before touching or ingesting any wild plant or fungi. We accept no liability for any harm caused by the misidentification or consumption of plants or fungi based on the information provided on this website.
3. Booking and Confirmation of Guided Experiences
Any request you send — through the booking form, the contact form, email, phone, WhatsApp, or Instagram — is a request only. A booking is not confirmed until we expressly confirm it to you in writing, and, where applicable, you have paid any deposit or amount we ask for. We reserve the right to decline or be unable to accept a request (for example, due to availability, group size, weather, or safety).
Prices, inclusions, meeting points, and timings are those communicated at the time we confirm your booking.
4. Participant Responsibilities
By taking part in a guided experience, you confirm that you (and anyone in your party, including any minor for whom you are responsible):
- are in adequate physical condition for the activity and its stated difficulty;
- have informed us, in advance, of any medical condition, allergy, injury, pregnancy, or other circumstance that could affect safe participation;
- will wear suitable clothing and footwear and bring any equipment we reasonably indicate;
- will follow the guide’s instructions and safety directions at all times during the activity;
- are responsible for any minor in your care, who must be accompanied by a participating parent or legal guardian.
We may refuse or end the participation of anyone who, in the guide’s reasonable judgement, is not adequately prepared, is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or whose conduct creates a risk to themselves or others. No refund is due in these cases.
5. Assumption of Risk and Liability for Guided Activities
Hiking, trekking, mushroom foraging, and other outdoor activities take place in a natural environment and carry inherent risks that cannot be entirely eliminated — including uneven or slippery terrain, falls, changing or severe weather, falling objects, water, wildlife, insects, plants and fungi, remoteness from medical assistance, and your own physical exertion.
You acknowledge and voluntarily accept these inherent risks when you take part. Stefano Gabryel acts as a qualified guide registered with AGAE (Associazione Guide Ambientali Escursionistiche) and provides his services with the professional care and diligence expected of that role. Subject to Section 10 below, and except for liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law (including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud), we are not liable for injury, accident, loss, or damage arising from the inherent risks of the activity or from your failure to follow the guide’s instructions or to disclose relevant information.
6. Foraging and Consumption During Guided Experiences
Mushroom and plant foraging experiences are educational and recreational. Identifications made or discussed during an experience are for learning purposes. The decision to keep, handle, cook, or consume any wild mushroom or plant — during or after the experience — is yours alone and at your own risk. You must not consume anything unless you are independently and completely certain of its identification and edibility. We accept no liability for any illness, harm, or damage resulting from the handling or consumption of wild mushrooms or plants.
7. Cancellations, Rescheduling and Refunds
Unless we state different terms in writing when we confirm your booking, the following applies to every guided experience. Please tell us as soon as possible if you can’t attend. The same text is on the Cancellation policy page.
If you cancel
- more than 7 days before: full refund, minus a €25 processing fee
- within 7 days: 50% of the total is retained
- within 3 days: the full amount is retained
- no-show, meaning you’re more than 30 minutes past the agreed start with no word from you: treated as a cancellation, no refund
I’ll wait that half hour and I’ll try to call you. If you’re running late and you tell me, we just work with what’s left of the day.
If you’d rather not walk in the rain
Tell me at least 48 hours before. If I have another day open while you’re still in the area, I’ll move you to it at no extra cost. That depends on what’s left in my diary, so it’s something I do when I can rather than a promise, and it’s one move. If I have nothing free, or you tell me inside 48 hours, the cancellation terms apply as normal: by then I’ve held the date and turned other work down.
If I cancel
I call a day off for safety, when weather or ground conditions make the route dangerous, or when something beyond my control gets in the way. Then we look for another date that works for both of us. If there isn’t one, I refund the full amount you paid, with no processing fee taken off, within 10 working days. If we haven’t agreed a new date within two weeks of the day I called off, the refund goes out on its own and neither of us has to chase it.
That refund is the limit of what I can cover. It doesn’t extend to travel, hotels or anything else you booked around the day, which is one more reason to have travel insurance.
If we turn back early
If we turn back part-way, for any reason, the day counts as delivered and no refund is due. Getting you safely off a mountain is the job as much as getting you up it. If we’ve barely started when I call it, I’ll do what I can to find you another date while you’re still here.
8. Weather, Safety and Force Majeure
The guide may modify the route, shorten, postpone, or cancel an experience, before or during the activity, whenever this is reasonably necessary for the safety of participants, for example due to weather, trail or ground conditions, or other hazards. We are not liable for cancellations, delays, or changes caused by events beyond our reasonable control (force majeure), including severe weather, natural events, strikes, illness, or actions of public authorities.
In practice, this is how weather is handled on every guided experience:
You book a guide, not a forecast
Tuscany isn’t a place where hiking stops for rain, and I’d rather set that expectation now than argue about it at 7 in the morning.
We walk in light rain
Rain on its own never cancels a walk. We go in drizzle, in passing showers, in fog and on grey damp days, so bring the jacket and come anyway. Wet weather gives you cloud drifting through the woods, colour in the rock and paths with nobody else on them.
I may change the route or the start time
If storms are forecast over the ridges in the afternoon, we start early and are off the high ground before they arrive. When a washed-out morning clears by midday, we go later. Wind on an exposed ridge, a hot day or short winter daylight can also send us onto a different route. So on a full-day hike, keep the whole day free. A half day, the mushroom walk included, needs less: just leave some room before and after. If you’ve already got something else that day, tell me when you book and I’ll work around it, weather permitting.
I cancel only for a real danger
That means one of these:
- thunderstorms I can’t plan around or outrun
- strong wind on an exposed ridge
- ice or hard snow on a route that would need an axe and crampons
- a red-level heat warning in the national heatwave bulletin
- an orange or red alert from the Regione Toscana covering the ground we’d actually be walking on
The Region issues those alerts for broad zones, so I read the bulletin against our route. An alert over a wide area doesn’t make every valley in it unsafe, and some days the answer is a lower route rather than no walk at all.
No message means we’re on
I watch the forecast from about three days out. The regional bulletin for the next day comes out in the early afternoon, so by the evening I know what I’m dealing with. If anything has to change (a new start time, a different route, or calling the day off), I message you by 20:00 the evening before. No message means we walk exactly as booked, same time, same meeting point. If conditions turn overnight, you’ll hear from me first thing.
Who makes the call
The call is mine to make, in both directions, and that’s deliberate. Reading a mountain on the day is most of what a guide is actually for, and it’s the part my licence and my insurance rest on. A forecast on your phone can’t tell you what the ground is doing under the cloud.
Whose rule this is
No Italian law obliges a guide to cancel on an orange alert. This is my own published standard, and it’s in line with what the parks do on the same signal.
9. Insurance
We strongly recommend that every participant holds their own valid personal accident and health insurance appropriate to outdoor activities, and, where relevant, travel insurance. Participation is your decision and responsibility.
10. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, and without excluding or limiting any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded (including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation), our total liability to you in connection with any experience shall not exceed the total amount you paid to us for that experience. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses.
Nothing in these Terms affects the mandatory rights you may have as a consumer under Italian and EU law.
11. Intellectual Property Rights
All content on this website, including but not limited to texts, graphics, logos, and especially all photographs, are the exclusive property of Stefano Gabryel, unless otherwise specified.
The reproduction, distribution, modification, publication, or any other use, in whole or in part, of this content without our prior written authorization is strictly prohibited.
12. Consumer Right of Withdrawal
Guided experiences are leisure services supplied on a specific date or within a specific period. Under Article 59 of the Italian Consumer Code (Legislative Decree 206/2005), which implements Article 16 of EU Directive 2011/83/EU, the 14-day right of withdrawal does not apply to such services. Cancellations are therefore governed by Section 7 above and by the terms confirmed at the time of booking.
13. Governing Law and Jurisdiction
These Terms & Conditions, and any booking or experience to which they apply, are governed by Italian law. Any dispute shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the Italian courts. Where you act as a consumer, the mandatory protections of the law of your country of residence and the competence of the court of your place of residence within the EU remain unaffected; in all other cases the court of Pistoia, Italy has exclusive jurisdiction.
14. Trip-Planning Consultation (the “Expert Brief”)
This section applies to the Expert Brief and any paid trip-planning consultation, which is a service separate from the guided experiences covered above.
- What it is. The Expert Brief is a professional advisory service: a call and a written brief with personalised recommendations for planning your own trip and hikes in Tuscany, such as routes, timing, logistics, and what is worth your time. It provides advice and information only.
- Not a travel agency or tour operator. I do not organise, sell, resell, book, or act as an intermediary for any travel service (including transport, accommodation, tours, tickets, restaurants, or activities provided by third parties), and I do not sell travel packages. The consultation is advice about how you may plan and book your own trip.
- You book everything yourself. All recommendations are non-binding suggestions. You make and pay for every reservation directly with each provider, in your own name, and you are solely responsible for your travel arrangements and their suitability for you. Any contract for a travel service is concluded solely between you and that provider.
- No commissions. I receive no commission, referral fee, or other payment from any provider I may mention. My only compensation is the fee you pay me for the advice.
- You verify before you act. Prices, availability, opening times, access, and conditions change; you are responsible for checking them with each provider before booking or setting out, and for assessing your own fitness and safety.
- How it works and payment. You send a request describing what you would like help with and a preferred date. I review it and, only if I believe I can genuinely help, send you a request to pay the fee (€65). The consultation proceeds after payment. If I cannot help, I will tell you and no fee is due.
- Professional status. This activity is a professione non organizzata carried out pursuant to Law No. 4 of 14 January 2013 (Legge 14 gennaio 2013, n. 4). It is distinct from my activity as a qualified environmental hiking guide.
- Withdrawal. The consultation is a service purchased at a distance. Where you ask me to begin before the 14-day statutory withdrawal period has ended, you agree that your right to withdraw is lost once the service has been fully performed (the brief prepared and delivered); until then you may withdraw, and I will refund what you have paid, less the value of any work already carried out at your request.
- Liability. I provide the consultation with the professional care and diligence expected of my role, but I am not responsible for the acts, availability, pricing, or performance of any third-party provider, nor for decisions you make on the basis of the advice. The limitation of liability in Section 10 applies to this service.
15. Revisions to These Terms
We reserve the right to update and modify these terms and conditions at any time. Changes take effect when posted on this page, and the “last updated” date above will be revised. Your continued use of the website after such changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the new terms. The terms applicable to a confirmed booking are those in force at the time of that booking.
Contact
For any question about these terms, contact Stefano Gabryel at stefano.gabryel@gmail.com.