Join us on a 7-day Italian cookery tour  in Abruzzo, central Italy! You will be part of a small group of people and will be able to develop your cooking skills, expand your wine knowledge and discover the region’s off-the-beaten-track secrets.

The highlight of this tour is the chance to learn how to make traditional Christmas dishes and to create your own Christmas gift with a local artist.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Art experience to make your own Christmas gift
• Visit typical Christmas markets
• Hands on cooking classes: pasta, Christmas dishes and pizza
• Award winning winery tour, wine tasting
• Olive oil tasting, cheese making, cheese tasting
• Fishing demonstration, visiting artisans, farm, castle
• Personalized cooking booklet, apron
• 6 nights accommodation
• 6 breakfasts, 8 meals in selected restaurants, farmhouses or wineries
• Small groups up to 16 people

ITINERARY

* B= Breakfast | L=Lunch | D=Dinner | T=Tasting | C=Cooking Lesson

Day 1 | Airport pick up and welcome to Abruzzo dinner! (*D)

Abruzzo: 2 views are better than one. The Adriatic & Appennine Mountains

Vasto old town overlooking the Adriatic Sea

Welcome dinner

PM

Day 2 | A visit to market, cooking pasta with Mamma, exploring Vasto’s historic center (B, C, L)

Cooking pasta with Mamma

Vasto Cathedral and passeggiata

A view of Vasto

After a leisurely traditional breakfast of freshly baked bread, whole fruit country-style preserves, cake, pastries, coffee, tea and freshly squeezed juice:

AM

• We’ll visit Vasto’s colorful market to get seasonal products
• Next we’ll have an exclusive cooking class with a housewife in her house and we’ll learn how easy fresh pasta is to make and be introduced to her favorite seasonal sauces. An example menu includes Bread with meat sauce, Pasta alla chitarra with meat sauce and polpette (meatballs), Cavatelli with vegetables and Tarallucci (typical biscuits from Abruzzo) – naturally this depends on seasonal availability

PM

• Lunch will consist of the scrumptious dishes that have been prepared in the morning
• In the afternoon we’ll explore Loggia Amblingh, a promenade overlooking the fascinating crescent-shaped coastline, the old town with its medieval Castle, charming lanes, a tower, the Cathedral and Piazza Rossetti, dedicated to Gabriele Rossetti, a poet from the town and father of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Before free time, we’ll meet some local artisans
• Tonight you may experience dinner on your own in one of the many restaurants of Vasto

Day 3 | Art experience and fishing demonstration on a trabocco fishing house (B, C, L, D)

Art experience with Ettore

Learnig to make a little sculpture

Trabocco fishing house

 AM

• After breakfast we’ll drive to the little hilltop village of Lentella at Ettore’s “Fattoria d’Arte”(Art farm)
• Surrounded by an amazing landscape with sea, mountains, hills, small towns and sea views, we’ll have an artistic experience with Ettore where you may create your personal Christmas gift (postcards or a little sculpture)
• We’ll have an aperitif and lunch with Ettore

PM

•  After a scenic itinerary along the Trabocchi (ancient fishing equipment typical to Abruzzo) Cost we’ll stop at Trabocco Punta Tufano. In this location, surrounded by the blue sea and green hills with olive trees, we’ll have a funny fishing experience with the “traboccante” (trabocco’s owner) Rinaldo that will share his love for its trabocco and will explain its secrets. During your seafood aperitif you can relax breathing the sea atmosphere and taking some photos of the many beautiful marine landscape
• Dinner in a traditional restaurant in the heart of Vasto

Day 4 | Christmas traditional dishes cooking class and free afternoon  (B, C, L)

Making scrippelle (traditional Christmas dessert)

Cooking class

Pallotte cac’ e ‘ove (Cheese & Egg Balls)

AM

• After a leisurely breakfast, we’ll prepare our lunch and learn some Christmas traditional dishes at Mama’s. An example menu includes Pallotte casce e ove (cheese & egg balls), Cannelloni with ricotta cheese and spinach,  Baccalà (Salt Cod) and Scrippelle (a typical Christmas sweet from Abruzzo) which we’ll enjoy for lunch

PM

• Free afternoon for your own activities, which could be: shopping, visit a nature reserve, take part to some extra activities/excursions or whatever you prefer
• Dinner at your leisure

Day 5 | Learning to make cheese at a small local artisan farm with its own creamery and Roccascalegna Medieval Castle  (B, C, T, L)

Milking sheep

Medieval Castle of Roccascalegna

Cheese making

AM

• After breakfast we’ll make our way to the farm where Pina and Berardino will reveal the secrets of sheep and cows farming to us and guide those that would like to learn how to milk a sheep or a cow
• After a snack of cheese, we’ll learn how to prepare ricotta cheese in their creamery
• We will also learn how to make a special bread called “pizza scima – stupid pizza”
• A delicious traditional lunch will be prepared and served. This will be the time to savor just made warm ricotta cheese

PM

• We’ll explore the enchanting Abruzzo’s castle in the sky in Roccascalegna
• Tonight you may experience dinner on your own in one of the many restaurants of Vasto

Day 6 | Olive oil tasting, wine-tasting, pizza cooking class & tiramisù (B, T, L, C, D)

Homemade pizza cooking class

Wine tasting

Olive oil tasting

AM

• Following breakfast we’ll visit the La Selvotta Olive Grove that has been farmed by Giovanni’s family for 3 generations to produce DOP olive oils. He will  unfurl he secrets of what Homer described as “liquid gold”and we will finish with an olive oil tasting
• Next we’ll visit Fontefico, an award winning winery that sits between a marine park and the mountains. We’ll have a wine tasting with pairings from local cheeses and salami and tour of the vineyard and cellars by owners Emanuele and Nicola

PM

• After lunch we’ll have an homemade pizza cooking class that includes the teaching of traditional bruschette and tiramisù

Day 7 | Goodbye

After breakfast departure (normally at 09:00 am) for Rome Fiumicino airport or your next destination (around 3,5 hours driving from Vasto to Rome Fiumicino airport)

* Recipes subject to the availability of seasonal produce