Day 1
Our driver and I will pick you up at the airport and we'll drive to Guardia Sanframondi, stopping along the way to eat a pizza.
Settle into your home away from home, a cozy 1 or 2 bedroom apartment in the heart of Guardia Sanframondi.
Stroll around Guardia a bit before a welcome dinner. Nonna Anna will prepare a home cooked meal and make you feel like family.
Day 2
After breakfast, we will learn to make fresh pasta and a sauce with Nonna Adelina (Lina) whose family has grown grapes and produced their own wines for generations. She also grows her own vegetables in her beautiful garden, where we will find our ingredients. Ernesto will show us the winery, followed by wine tasting and a feast on our pasta as well as other delicacies from Lina's garden.
Mid day is siesta time in Italy, a good time to relax and sink into the rhythm of Southern Italy and rest from your long trip or have a coffee at a bar and banter with the friendly and curious locals. Later in the afternoon, get to know your way around Guardia Sanframondi with Rossella as we tour the historical center of Guardia, with its castle, medieval houses, and UNESCO churches and get a glimpse of everyday life before modern times.
In the evening, enjoy the local area, go to a pub, listen to Italian music. La vita e bella. Dinner at a beautiful restaurant near the historical center.
Day 3
After breakfast, we will take a drive to Saepinum in Sepino, Benevento, where you can experience the convergence of time and space on this archeological site and feel the energy of multiple civilizations beginning even before the Samnites of the 5th century B.C., through Greek and Roman days, Medieval times, 18th Century to the present moment.
We’ll continue on to Sassinoro to the beautiful church of Santa Lucia, atop the temple to Demeter, the goddess of unconditional motherly love. On our way back to Guardia, we’ll stop by a buffalo milk dairy and taste their buffalo mozzarella and most amazing buffalo milk gelato.
Day 4 (Sunday)
After a "piccola colazione" small breakfast, consisting of a cappuccino and a pastry, we will gather ingredients for a large Sunday meal and cooking class at my home. Enjoy the rest of the day to relax, passaggiata or stroll around town, as they do in Italy with the locals, have an aperativo at a bar, listen to a local band, have a gelato...ah, la dolce vita. In the evening, we will drive through the beautiful countryside to another mountain village for the famous Mushroom festival or Chestnut festival (Subject to season). Sample homemade dishes. Dance to traditional folk music.
Day 5
Today we will visit some of the local towns and enjoy their specialties on a tour of the Sannio region. Step into a ceramic studio in Cerreto, the ceramics town, for a glimpse of the artist at work, and a hands on lesson. Castelvenere and Solopaca are other wine cities in the area. We will visit vineyards, taste wines and sample some of the regional cuisine.
Day 6
Connect with the local community picking grapes on a vineyard. (season permitting) A true family affair for all ages; picking grapes, singing songs and having lunch under the vines. After a rest, we will visit one the wineries followed by a wine pairing dinner.
Day 7
Feeling sore from picking grapes? We’ll visit a spa, relax with a massage, a swim. In the evening afternoon, we will enjoy a tasting menu of local delicacies paired with local wines at a Michelin rated restaurant.
Day 8
Nature walk in Mount Tiburno followed by food preparation at an agriturismo.
In the evening we will have a Farewell party with all our new friends at the castle sampling local wines and local dishes.
Day 9
After breakfast, we leave for Naples and check into our beautiful hotel by the sea. We’ll have a stroll along the seaside, then a food tour to taste the best Naples has to offer. From famous coffee houses, pastries, pizza, spaghetti al vongole, ragu. We will visit the historic center, farmers markets, fish market, and underground markets dating back to Greek and Roman times that are now ruins.
Day 10
Depart from Naples Airport
Other options: season permitting, we will go mushroom hunting, then make pizza topped with our mushroom find. Cooking and eating day with Lina. We can learn some of these home cooked meals such as chicken piccata, or cutlet, beef with mushrooms and wine, lasagne, sauteed vegetables in season, eggplant parmesan, preserving fruit, eggplant, sun dried tomatoes, coffee cakes, bread, biscotti, Limoncello.
Boat ride on the Amalfi Coast, visit Pompeii, Capri or Ischia.
