But hold on, there is more. Say you pass muster on the phone as a hunting client, and you are ready to sign a contract. Not so fast. In order to be finally accepted for a hunt, you (and your entire hunting party) have to attend a face-to-face meeting with the agent, usually over a meal paid for by the agent, who flies into your hometown specifically to meet you. Only then, when you've passed muster in a face-to-face meeting, will you be allowed to put a deposit down on a hunt.
That unusual procedure is the one Lawan Andersen of Tapestry Travel follows when would-be hunting clients call her about booking a hunt in Italy. Why does she do it? Because she is primarily a conductor of cultural tours (cultural immersions, she calls them), and the extraordinary network of people she has put together in Italy - landowners who trace their lineage back to the Medicis, top chefs, first class waiters, etc. - have had no exposure to the rough-and-tumble of contemporary international hunting. Quite simply, she does not want to risk alienating any of "her people" by bringing the wrong kind of hunting client into what is truly a sort of inner sanctum of Old-World hunting.
Even here at The Hunting Report, we had to run a gauntlet of sorts to be allowed to accompany Andersen on a check-out visit of some of the estates she hunts. We had to attest in writing that we would not divulge any names of the people we met. And, yes, we would run everything by her for final approval before it was set in type.
If all this sounds hoity-toity, so be it. Lawan Andersen, to her (and our)........(continued)
