Food and Culture in South Italy

North of Naples and South of Rome

In the area between Rome and Naples, in Lazio and Campania regions, there are several small towns and medieval borgo. In many ways, these communities in Caserta Province are a microcosm of all the things visitors to Italy look for: history, culture, traditions and a local community waiting to show you around. These towns stand out for palaces, museums, cathedrals and convents from the XI to the XV Centuries. 

A Roman Era Basilica and Archaeological Museum

Food and Wine Traditions the fertile territory north of Naples in Caserta Province has historically been a major contributor to food production in the region from the days of ancient Rome.

A Farmers Museum is situated in the 15^th Century palace of a medieval borgo; it features the special relationship between this land and its people with songs and dances by minstrels and cantors as well as tasting and making the local specialties.

Mozzarella, perhaps the most famous local food product, and a major export, it is made with artisan skills from buffalo milk into ovoline, ciliegine, trecce and ricotta, among others.

Olive Oil is another local tradition. The flavor, appearance and unique characteristics of this territory’s extra virgin olive oil, along with various natural factors, influence harvesting, cultivation and production in a strictly artisanal undertaking.

Falerno Wine the hills present near ideal conditions for wine making. The Falerno Vines originate in this area and are still cultivated by hand in the local vineyards, continuing a tradition dating back to the Romans time.

North and South of Naples Italy

Royal and Cultural Capitals Archeology Parks and Museums Caves and Volcanoes

Campania the ancient Romans called this region of Italy Campania Felix. Baia, Puteoli, Pompeii, Stabia and Capri were their favorite destinations. Then and now, Happy Campania is famed for its ancient ruins, coastal resorts and world renowned culinary traditions. A cultural and national capital for much of its nearly three thousand year history, Naples is home to art museums, the San Carlo opera house and a spectacular bay framed by Mt. Vesuvius, affectionately and fearfully referred to by the local inhabitants as The Monster.

Royal and Cultural Capitals

Caserta is best known for its 18^th century royal palace and gardens and the medieval borgo of Caserta Vecchia. Equally and historically important are the San Leucio silk works, a Unesco site,  and the Living Silk Museum with its original looms and machinery showing all the phases of silk productions.
 

Naples is best defined by the stratification of the various periods in the city’s history that can be viewed in the historic center, the oldest continuously inhabited urban community in the Western World. It corresponds to the ancient city founded by the Athenians around 450 B.C. as Neapolis, through Roman and Medieval times. It includes over 250 churches, palazzi from the 13^th through the 20^th century and countless art treasures.

Your exploration starts from the Forum, then under the Gothic Church of San Lorenzo Maggiore to view the ruins of the Roman streets and the Macellum, the food market. Then on to San Gregorio Armeno, where the world famous Neapolitan Crib art are made, and the Cappella Sansevero and the sculpture of the Veiled Christ. A few square miles with three castles, a royal palace, world class museums, the world’s second oldest university and bank. Also, an underground city with ancient aqueducts, caves, catacombs, myths, legends and a modern subway system whose stations are covered with art.
 

Salerno is renowned for its medieval historic center and the world’s first medical school. Under the rule of the Sanseverino family, it became a center of learning, culture and the arts. The city was also briefly the capital of Italy in 1943, following the Allied invasion of southern Italy.  Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Maleventum, the site of bad events, and a major defeat by the Roman army. It was supposedly founded by Diomedes after the Trojan War. Santa Sofia Church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, part of a group of seven historic buildings dating from the Longobard era – 558 to 774 ad. The historic center is an open air museum.

Experiential Tourism in Naples Italy with the Traveler as Protagonist

Experiences designed around multiple interests that ensure unique emotions; the traveler participates alongside local cooks, artists, craftsmen, and expert tour guides in activities:

o   rooted in the territory; it can happen only here, and

o   with uniquely local events, including food and wine tastings

o   specifically modified and tailored to your preferences  

memorable unique and unrepeatable!

Know More About It     Arezza    Knowledge Tourism   travel@arezza.net

Archeological Parks and Museums

South of Naples the road and railway along the slopes of Mount Vesuvius that connects Naples with the Sorrento Peninsula and the Amalfi Coast is known as the Golden Mile and is replete with archeological parks and museums. Pompeii’s excavations, begun in the 18^th century, are still being carried out today. Strolling through some of the ancient streets, you can see baths, forums and villas built by the prosperous Romans in what was the empire’s second most important city. 

Poppea’s imperial villa in Oplonti features magnificent wall decorations and Stabia was home to luxury villas. The Boscoreale Museum is dedicated to Roman era daily life, including the excavation of a suburban factory. Also, the MAV - virtual archeological museum – with 3D videos of the Vesuvius eruption.
 

North of Naples the bays of Miseno, Baia and Pozzuoli were the home port of the Roman Navy, Baia’s Imperial Palace featured baths with waters of volcanic origin and the Flaegrean Fields Archeological Musem includes finds from Baia’s submerged city. In Pozzuoli, the Temple of Serapide, is famous for the cyclical sinking of its grounds and the Flavian Amphitheater was the third largest arena of the empire.

In Naples, the Botanical Gardens feature Living Roman Plants and seeds to bring back Pompeii’s plants. Charles of Bourbon put the largest art collection in Italy, the Farnese collection inherited by his mother Elisabeth, into the National Archeological Museum. Over the years, the largest archaeological collection of all time, relics from Pompeii and the villas buried under the ashes of Vesuvius in 79 BC, were brought here, including mosaics, paintings and jewelry.
 

The Cilento Coast is littered with hilltop medieval villages, olive groves and spectacular beaches. Paestum’s Museum and Archeological Park is a Unesco site and the heart of Magna Grecia. Further south, Velia and its famed pink door.

Caves and Volcanoes

Vesuvius itineraries feature a walking tour of the volcano’s crater, with a spectacular bird’s eye view of Naples bay, with a focus on the volcano’s last eruption in 1944 and night tours with electric torches. Choose between the Valley of Hell trail or a shorter and easier lava trail.
Solfatara is located in a park near Pozzuoli and features boiling mud lakes and fumarole.
Pertosa Grottoes a fascinating cave complex; you enter the grottoes with a boat.
Castelcivita Grottoes a surreal and geogolically active underground excursion.
Amalfi Windmill Valley the medieval maritime superpower’s paper mills powered by windmills.

Science

Solfatara Geo Lab interactive, multimedia geophysics and volcanology labs with the following programs: Vesuvius eruptions; shake like a leaf; yesterday, today and tomorrow; Flegrean Fields; a super volcano at Naples’ doorstep.
Portici Botanic Lab a unique educational workshop in the Portici Royal Palace; small plants kits are issued to children to transform their schools’ window sills and flower beds into mini botanic gardens.
 

Castelcivita Speleo Lab workshop and tour of Caving equipment and techniques, Carsius caves characteristics and Castlecivita Neanderthal.
Vesuvius Minerological Lab workshop, walking tour and souvenir mineral kit.
ENEA Research Center solar energy and environmental technology applications at Italy’s energy and Environment Institute.
Eolic Park San Marco dei Cavoti historic center tour and visit to one of Italy’s most important wind energy parks.

Food Traditions

Educational Workshops carried out by local small businesses specializing in the culinary traditions of Campania region includes: warm bread covered with hazelnut cream, mozzarella, black pig salame and cheese filled panini and panuozzo. The workshops follow five themes: the five senses of food; food chemistry and fraud; Campania and international recipes; insects and bio-agriculture; digesting food; fruits and vegetables.

Making Pasta in Gragnano, a town nestled between Pompeii and the Sorrento peninsula, it’s an ancient art form that involves history, culture, patience, secrets and traditions. The town’s main street was laid out to capture the mountain breeze mixed with sea air back when pasta makers hung spaghetti on drying rods. Today, it is dried with heaters at 122F for two days.

Making Pizza in a workshop by the slopes of the Vesuvius; practical and food tasting experience.

Theatre and the Divine Comedy

Hell Dante’s Inferno portrayed in the Castelcivita Caves; an underground itinerary filled with music, lights, multimedia reconstructions and 30 actors that bring alive Italy’s literary masterpiece.
Purgatory the journey continues in the gardens of the Padula Chartreuse where you meet Catone Uticense, Purgatory’s keeper.
 

Paradise the performance concludes in the enchanting settings of Salerno’s Arechi Castle and the Amalfi Coast, guided by Dante in person!

Gragnano Italy Pasta and Wine Traditions

Mountain and Sea Air Spring Water and Sunshine are Key to Pasta Quality

Gragnano is a hill town 30 Km south of Naples, overlooking Pompeii and Vesuvius, just outside Castellammare and it port in Naples Bay; it’s location halfway between Sorrento and Amalfi is ideal to visit Sorrento, Capri, the Amalfi Coast as well as the countryside of the Campania region of Italy.

Pasta Tradition making pasta in Gragnano is an ancient art form that involves history, culture, patience, secrets and traditions. The town’s main street was laid out expressly to capture the mountain breeze mixed with sea air back when pasta makers hung spaghetti on drying rods like laundry. Now, heaters are used to dry the pasta at 122 degrees Fahrenheit for two days, resulting in a nuttier aroma and a chewier feel.

A History of the Valley of the Mills

The Valley of the Mills is famous for its spontaneous springs and Gragnano’s water is important for its therapeutic and diuretic properties. It is also a favorite destination for tourists who sip delicious water in full contemplation of the area’s landscape while its artistic patrimony is reflected in the many centuries-old churches such as Corpus Domini, which houses one of the largest canvases in Europe - over 400 square meters.

Gragnano's Pasta Factories Contributed 10 Percent of Italy’s Production a Century Ago

The Gragnano Pasta Cooperative represents small producers in the area; it holds that the dough should be made solely from Italian wheat, be pushed through perforated bronze plates to mold it, and that the resulting strands, sheets and elegant shapes must be dried at temperatures no higher than 122 degrees. Higher temperatures burn the dough.

Visit Gragnano Naples and Italy with Knowledge Tourism

Greco di Tufo is one of Campania’s finest whites and is perhaps the oldest wine in all of Italy. Greco refers to its Ancient Greek origins, after those who first brought the grape to Italy and cultivated it on the slopes of the Vesuvius. The first written account is found in a poem fragment from 6 BC in Pompeii. Written on a wall, it reads: You are cold, Bice, truly a piece of ice, if even the Greco wine could not warm your heart last night.

It is Cultivated in Tufo, Santa Paolina, Prato di Principato Ultra, Montefusco, Altavilla Irpina, Chianche, Petruro Irpino, and Torrioni. Only the hillsides of these areas are considered suitable for this wine as valleys and points of lower elevation are humid and lack the necessary sunlight and mountain breezes. To be considered Greco di Tufo, which has had DOC appellation since 1970 and DOCG since 2003, 85% must be of Greco di Tufo, with up to 15% coda di volpe. The wine can also be a sparkling spumante.

Greco di Tufo is not a mild-mannered wine. With zesty, fresh flavors of peaches, pear and herbs, coupled with restrained aromas of almond and apricot; a fully dry white wine with a sharp minerality. It is these distinct notes that place Greco di Tufo one step above the two-other great white Campania wines, Falanghina and Fiano di Avellino. Some believe that it complements mild dishes nicely, such as seafood, rice and pasta in butter or white sauces; others think that it pairs perfectly with strong dishes of veal, chicken, and cheeses.