Turin and The Langhe in Piemonte

Food Wine and History

Turin traces its origins to the 3^rd Century BC. Located along the Po River and surrounded by the Alps, this city boasts numerous art galleries, theaters, libraries, museums and palaces in the baroque, rococo and neoclassical styles.

A Walking Tour of Turin’s elegant streets and squares includes Palazzo Carignano and the Academy of Science, with the Egyptian Museum and the Galleria Sabauda. Piazza Castello, the heart of the city, contains the Royal Palace, San Lorenzo Church, the Royal Library, the Armory and the Royal Theater.

Nearby: Venaria Castle, one of Italy’s most visited cultural sites, the Martini Museum and Factory, and Cascina Balbiano’s private museum containing ancient wine making tools.

Food and Wine Turin is famous for its use of aromatic herbs, fish, extra virgin olive oil and no less than 69 traditional local starters. It is also known as the “capital of sweets”, including Revigliasco cherries and scrumptious chocolate.

Po River Cruises Medieval towns along the Po river and a panoramic boat trip. Island Hopping Stresa and the Borromee Islands, a motorboat cruise to Isola Madre, Isola Bella and the Isola dei Pescatori - Fishermen’s Island.

Points of Interest in the Langhe Region

Alba, the city of 100 towers, is home to white truffles and the Dolcetto red wine.

Serralunga Castle and Regional Winery

Barolo Wine and Corkscrew Museums, Cheese Factory

Grinzane Cavour Regional Wine Cellar and Castle

Torrone Factory

Fontanafredda over 100 hectares of vineyards in the heart of the Langhe hills.

Wellness Cultural and Culinary Travel

in Salento and Puglia Italy

The Salento Peninsula is in the southeastern corner of the Puglia region of Italy. In ancient times it was inhabited by the Messapi a term signifying “land amid the waters” – the Ionian and Adriatic seas. Towns and villages are characteristically made of whitewashed houses in narrow streets with local handicraft shops, immersed in the green of the olive trees and vineyards, bordered by the typical dry-stone walls.

Sun, sea and breezes during a summer season lasting from May to mid-October. The mild winters are always pleasant with plenty of sunshine.

Wellness Bio Dances Holistic Massages Mystical and Healing Practices Influenced by Local Traditions

An enchanting setting along the Salento coastline, Villa Cesarea is on top of four marine grottoes that are the source of its famed mineral waters. It is also a place of pagan and Christian legends. In the former, the waters were created by giant men made of fire and sulfur, whereas the latter, from which name the Cesarea is derived, is based on the young maiden Cisaria whose sacrifice purified and sanctified the waters.

The Salentum Treatment consists of body scrubs, face masks and massages with local ingredients: wine and olives, olive oil, blackberries and pomegranates, Mediterranean citrus fruits.

Accommodations elegant apartments in a beautiful park surrounded by age-old olive and fruit trees and a biological garden; nearby: cycle tracks and an 18-hole golf course.

Baroque Architecture Food and Wine Traditions and Spectacular Coastlines

Culture famous for its soft stones, ideal for making sculptures, and its ceramics products, Lecce is over 2000 years old and renowned for its historic center and baroque architecture, stretching from Roman times to the 18^th Century, the Acaya renaissance quarter, the Cavallino Widespread Museum, the Messapi archeological park and the MUSA University Museum. It is also a major agricultural center specializing in olive oil and wine, hence, numerous opportunities to experience the famed local wines and traditional cuisine.

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Nardò second largest town in the region, takes the concept of sustainability very seriously; it is built on local traditions that are especially manifest in food and wine as well as the arts and culture. The city’s monuments are characterized by different artistic styles representative of its long history. 

Gallipoli is on an island with ancient monuments, tiny streets, and churches surrounded by the pristine waters of the Ionian Sea.

Otranto is the eastern most city in Salento with magnificent sea views and monuments like Corigliano Castle and the Carpignano Byzantine Crypt.

Food and Wine experience Salento’s famed wines and traditional cuisine. Some local specialties: puccia, friseddhre, pittule, rustici, pasticciotti and sweets made ​​of almond paste, accompanied by the local wines: Negramaro, Primitivo and Malvasia.

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Venetian Countryside Food and Wine Itineraries

 Cooking Classes and Culinary Tours

Veneto is the most productive wine area in Italy and a unique area where the flavors of the local products combine to create delicious dishes, both in traditional and innovative ways. When natural products are put together to create a dish, the choice of ingredients and the way they are combined, cooked, and eaten are a function of identity, lifestyle and social status.

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Cooking classes designed to acquaint you with Venice and its territory by explaining how these local dishes developed and changed over the centuries. Learn to cook a savory risotto al radicchio, sweet white asparagus, baccalà, corn meal with boiled baby shrimp seasoned with Italian dressing, homemade noodles with basil pesto and scampi.

Tiramisù was created in Treviso just 40 km from Venice

Wine tours include an overview of the issues facing winemakers and how they retain family traditions and preserve the local environment. The Prosecco Wine Hills visit includes stops at local wine cellars, an ancient abbey and an imposing medieval castle

Medieval Treviso walk along its narrow, pebbled streets and chic boutiques. Learn the history and mysteries of the city known as the Garden of Venice. Have lunch in a typical restaurant and enjoy a typical Spritz with Cicheti in a local Cicchetteria.

Venetian Villas participate in a typical cooking class, where you will learn some of the secrets of the Venetian cuisine, in a charming Venetian Villa designed by Palladio and walk through the medieval village of Asolo, a widespread museum.

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The Food and Wine Traditions of the Amalfi Coast

Lemons Pasta Pomodorino Pizza and Costa D’Amalfi Doc

Terra Furoris, Land of Furor, is the ancient name of this community in the hills above the Amalfi Coast; it symbolizes the fury of the sea inside its fjord. This area produces “pomodorino” – small tomatoes – and a vine with a terroir - Costa d´Amalfi Doc – unique in Europe.

Furore’s vineyards produce high quality reds and whites, appreciated around the world, including in a cantina built into the rocks and others that extend for just a few hectares, given the characteristics of this territory, fruit of the local labor and its talents, cultivated in pockets of land carved from mountains, rocks and the sea.

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The Cuisine on the Amalfi Coast is representative of the landscape’s variety:

Pasta in the Costiera includes 'ndunderi, large gnocchi with ricotta, semola and spices, recognized by Unesco and made with spelt flour; it traces its origins from Roman times.

Colatura di Alici di Cetara, evolved from the Roman garum, is a local sauce, typical of this area, resulting from the natural process of preserving anchovies.

Furore is One of Most Beautiful Borghi in Italy

Dairy Specialties such as ricotta, fior di latte, provola and caciocavalli are still produced by several artisan shops in the nearby town of Tramonti.

Sfusato Amalfitano a sweet variety of lemon utilized in making limoncello but also an indispensable ingredient in the local cuisine.

Local Culinary Traditions can be experienced with the catch of the day, combined with vegetables and Mediterranean macchia herbs producing dishes such as swordfish cooked in lemon leaves, parmigiana with anchovies, tuna in a genovese sauce, squid and potatoes, the latter especially popular with the local farmer-fishermen and their very large families.

Migliaccio Minestra Maritata and Caponata are Dishes Typically Found at Local Restaurants

Monasteries Monks and Nuns have experimented and contributed to all this with a judicious use of lemons, fennel, laurel, nuts and wild strawberries, creating sweets and preserves, the Santa Rosa cake, bocconotto, melanzane with chocolate and even the famed caprese.

Pizza is another local tradition, exported by the over three thousand Tramonti pizzaioli who have travelled and brought their talents all over the world.

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Information and Reservations

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Travel Duration from 3 nights and 4 days to 7 nights and 8 days Group Size Minimum 4, Maximum 50 persons.

Cost/Person/Day Euro 245 for adults age 19 to 64 Euro 195 for seniors 65+ and children under 18.

Information for Booking First and Last Name, Passport Number, Expiration date and Issuing country, Date of birth, Email address.

Included Travel between cities and states that are part of the itinerary, lunches and dinners, accommodations in double occupancy with breakfast for three nights, applicable local and state taxes, one-half day sightseeing events, local transport services.

Excluded Evening entertainment and transport to tour location start and from tour ending location.

Day/time Day to day programs and specific events at each location, as well as the sequence of the tour stops, will be finalized with the participation of the clients after details on family/group composition have been determined to take-into-account client priorities and preferences.

Reductions Children under the age of 18 and seniors over the age of 65 traveling with parents and/or guardians, staying in the same hotel room receive a 20 percent discount.

Dante in the Marche Region

Poetry Food Wine and Eroticism

Dante Alighieri was a statesman, poet and father of the modern Italian language. May 29^th 2015 will be the 750^th anniversary of his birth in Florence. As a literary figure, Dante is placed alongside Homer and Shakespeare, creators of larger than life characters.

The Divine Comedy, his defining work, is, among other things, a first for the Italian language and a representation of the spiritual, personal and political circumstances of his time. The latter led Dante into exile from Florence, including in Marche where he provided profound inspiration to the local culture.

Urbino is remembered by Dante in the 27^th canto of the Inferno in a dialogue with Guido of Montefeltro, the local lord. Fiorenzuola di Focara owes it notoriety for having hosted Dante Alighieri in a baker's house where the poet experienced the emotion of strong gusts of wind lashing the promontory on which stands a castle by the sea creating the most incredible and dangerous currents.

The Gradara Castle and rocks live in the hearts of lovers all over the world; here, the love story between Paolo de Malatesta and Francesca da Polenta - better known as Francesca da Rimini – blossomed, came to a tragic end was eternalized by Dante in the V canto of the Inferno. You can view the altarpiece by Giovanni Santi, father of Raffaello Sanzio – Raphael.  Pesaro is not directly cited by the poet, however it maintains strong connotations to Dante because Gianciotto de’ Malatesti, nicknamed the Cripple, was mayor of this seaside town and is buried here. Dante consigned him to Hell.

Fonte Avellana Dante spent much of his life in the footsteps of Pier Damiani, to whom he dedicated the 21^st canto of Paradise in the Divine Comedy. He also visited Mount Catria in search of a peace and tranquility denied him in his native Florence.

Dante and the Gastronomical Traditions of Marche There is a rich presence of food in the Divine Comedy and his other works, including lentil soup laced with wine, figs, apples, honey and vin santo; in all, 14 courses are portayed in the Convivio. Also well-known are the cantos dedicated to the gluttons in both Hell and Purgatory that accompany his constant hunger; he even coined the neologism “scuffare”- to eat avidly and noisily. There is a rapport between diet and eroticism: the gluttons come right after the lustful in Inferno’s 6^th canto and, in Purgatory, those that fall to temptations of the senses are presented in the last of the seven frames.

A Unique Culinary Experience

Help prepare truffle dishes and other Marchigiano specialties in these magical surroundings 

 

Some Dishes inspired by Dante

Tartare of Madonna Bellaccoglienza these are the classic waffles from Abruzzo wrapped with aged cheese, making them a cannoli. Madonna Bellaccoglienza is the sensual protagonist of the novel in verse "The Flower" which Dante wrote translating from the French "Roman de la rose".

Glauco Omelette a cheese omelette, served hot and in wedges, with algae or herbs that make it gently magical. Glauco, the legendary fisherman of Boeotia, places his catch on a bed of herbs, then sees them take heart and jump back into the sea. He ate the algae, turned into a fish and became a marine deity.

Suppa alla Beatrice a barley soup of barley with tricolor vegetables sprinkled with grated aged cheese. Beatrice, dressed in white, red and green, announces that God’s righteousness is not afraid "soup", referring to the curious Florentine custom of forgiving even the most serious crimes if the perpetrator could eat a soup dish at least 7 times at the crime’s site without getting arrested. ("Paradise" 33^rd). 

Mense alla Virgilio the Piadina of Romagna. Virgil, Dante's guide in the Divine Comedy,

tells him from the Aeneid that the Trojans acquired the custom of eating piadine with their food during a stopover in Africa; a culinary tradition they introduce in Rome and later in Romagna (Inferno 1^st).

Acqua Lete When Dante reaches Earthly Paradise, he is baptized in the Lete River and continues his journey to Celestial Paradise (Purgatory 28^th).

 

Torta di Frutti Misti a pie made of applese, pears, figs and plums, present in all religions.

Vini dei Colli di Romagna famous area wines – sangiovese, albana, rebola, vini di sabbia.

 

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