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“Minky and I have made the herb and lemon chicken to rapturous audiences. We used the best organic chicken chopped into 8 by our local butcher. Kept the skin and bones on (instead of nude drumsticks, as Alessandra taught us), which makes for a much juicier richer flavour. I'd say ours tasted nothing like the one we made at Casabasciana — but I so enjoyed the extravagant amounts of herbs, garlic and oil that I had to have another shot at it. This will be our staple for the winter!”
Rachel Byrt (Mother)
“Making fresh tagliatelle was my favourite activity and I remember every detail of how to do it — better than my Dad! We’ve made it together several times since we got home. The honey tasting was also fun, watching it being made and then actually trying the result. The birthday cake looked fantastic with all the fruit on, and tasted fabulous. I also had a great time swimming and horse riding, and the adventure park was brilliant.”
Beatrix Houston (9 years 11 months old) |
Packaged adventures:
Gastronomic Adventures for Families
When did your children last cook dinner for you? In my village in the Garfagnana, the youngsters prepare a wood-oven baked pizza dinner for the whole village. My 11-year-old student of English begs to be let off her lesson early to go home and help make necci, traditional chestnut-flour crêpes, with her grandmother. Last autumn she had helped collect the chestnuts and take them to the nearby chestnut-drying hut. She visited the organic water mill where they were ground, and she knows her chestnut flour won a national gold medal this year.
In Italy families still cook and eat together with conviviality and affection. You and your children can experience these intangible pleasures while staying in a small village or on a smallholding and mixing with the locals. Share the locals’ delight in food in all its aspects — growing it, processing it, cooking it, tasting it and eating it along with the local wine and beer.
There are loads of different activities at different seasons that can be enjoyed by the ‘young at heart’ of any age. Here’s a sample:
Learning about bees |
Homemade pasta |
Adventure park |
Meeting goats |
 Cooking lessons with young Italian mammas — learn to make pasta by hand and lots of other traditional dishes that are easy to make with your children at home with the bonus of a healthy meal to enjoy with friends and family.- Develop the confidence to improvise without a recipe using the ingredients you have to hand.
- Swim.
- Pick wild bilberries (blueberries) and make jam in July. Pick olives and make olive oil in October.
- Watch Renato make sausages and then BBQ them for dinner.
- Paint the mountain scenery, the wildflowers, the sunset.
- Mingle with Italian families at one of the many village festivals celebrating the food that makes them unique, for example, a type of crêpe made only in one village in the mountains or rosticciana and fagioli (the Garfagnana version of pork ribs and beans).
- Ride horses.
- Children organize a blind wine-tasting for their parents.
- Visit a beekeeper and watch her extract honey from the honeycomb — don’t worry, the bees stay at home in the hive — and taste the different flavours of honey, such as acacia, wildflower and chestnut, on cheese and locally baked bread.
- Walk in the woods to see the Cinta Senese pigs and piglets.
- Put on a concert (we’ll find out if anyone plays an instrument and suggest they bring it).
- Get off the ground in a woodland adventure park for children and adults (suspension bridges, rope ladders, and other exciting pathways connecting the tree trunks) and eat a picnic ‘tasting’ lunch of delicious local products.
- Get milk from the ‘mechanical cow’, a refrigerator that lives in a wooden hut and gives unpasturized milk when you press the button. A local dairy farmer fills her up twice a day.
- Keep a journal — in words or pictures — so you can share your adventures with your friends at home.
- GOLDEN RULE: Taste everything — you might be surprised how good it is…!
…but you don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it!
When asked what she enjoyed most, one 6-year-old said it was going to the spring to get fresh cold water for the dinner table. Pleasures can be that simple. A 9-year-old and her dad went straight home and made handmade pasta (with a rolling pin, not a pasta machine!) to delight her mother and aunt.
A detailed programme for a sample six-night holiday is available on request. There will be plenty of free time, but since we tap into the knowledge of local people, they will already have been booked and will be expecting us to arrive at a particular time. If you want a holiday doing whatever you want whenever you want, this isn’t the one for you. But if you want to step into an unmodern world, unwind and renew the quality of your family life while gaining new skills you can take home with you, then join us for an unforgettable journey.
Suitable for parents (single or couples) and children over 5.
Small groups: maximum 10 people.
Accommodation is usually in double rooms with one bathroom per two double rooms; often you will be in your own apartment or cottage on a farm estate.
If you put together your own group of 4 or more, we would be happy to create a programme especially for you.
Spring Half-Term Gastronomic Adventure for Families
27 – 31 May 2008 (4 nights)
Prices for 4 nights
 Up to 4 people
Option 1: Village house — no swimming pool, but an excellent public pool in Bagni di Lucca (15-minute drive — transport provided)
€700 per person (same price for adults and children)
Option 2: Converted farmhouse (with swimming pool)
€800 per person (same price for adults and children)
More than 4 people
Converted farmhouse (with swimming pool)
€750 per person (same price for adults and children)
Summer Gastronomic Adventures for Families
No fixed dates.
How the summer adventures work:
- You tell us when you want your adventure to start and for how long you want it to last.
- We check availability of suitable accommodation, create a programme and give you a costing. If two families want to come at the same time, we will place you at the same agriturismo (accommodation on a farm) and plan a programme suitable for the whole group. You have our full attention throughout your holiday.
- We fine-tune the itinerary to suit your requirements and adjust the costing if necessary. Once we’ve agreed the itinerary and the costing, we email you a booking form which you fill in and return to us with a deposit. The balance is due 8 weeks before the start of the tour.
Prices for sample 6-night adventure
Up to 4 people
Option 1: Village house — no swimming pool, but an excellent public pool in Bagni di Lucca (15-minute drive — transport provided)
€1200 per person (same price for adults and children)
Option 2: Converted farmhouse (with swimming pool)
€1400 per person (same price for adults and children)
More than 4 people
Converted farmhouse (with swimming pool)
€1300 per person (same price for adults and children)
Meeting points
Pisa International Airport (Galileo Galilei)
or the following train stations:
Pisa Centrale
Lucca
Ponte a Moriano
International travel advice
For more information on flights to Pisa International Airport, please click here.
For information on arriving by train The Man in Seat Sixty-One gives much good advice.
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