New Adventures for 2010: Vegetarian Half Term | Taste + Textiles | Italian Countryside Tour

Other personalized packages: Cheese + Honey | Pork + Porcini | Olive Oil, Chestnuts + Polenta |
Gastronomic Adventures for Familes | Bare Oil in Tuscany | Cooking Lessons and Courses

Courses: Advanced Salumi Course: Salami, Sausages and Salted Loin

Personalized packages:
Taste + Textiles

22 — 27 May 2010

Feed the silkworms and yourself on a small-group escorted tour of the artisan food and textiles of Lucca and the Garfagnana.

Sapori e Saperi means flavours and knowledge — knowledge of how our food is produced, but also of the culture of the people who produce it, which leads us to textiles and two exciting projects of renewal.

In mediaeval and renaissance times the wealth of Lucca was based on silk production and banking. Banking continues unabated, but silk working gradually declined until it died out in the mid-20th century. We visit a young Lucchese woman who is passionately recovering the skills of her grandmother and husband’s grandmother who reared silkworms.

The other resuscitation project aims to save from extinction the native sheep of the Garfagnana, a spectacularly beautiful mountainous region to the north of Lucca. We spend a day at the alpine paradise of Cerasa, where the signora uses the milk of this breed to make pecorino cheese and ricotta, while her daughter has learned the skills of making natural dyes and preparing the wool to be woven on traditional handlooms and looks forward to exchanging ideas with other weavers.

Five percent of your fee will be donated to these two projects.

Highlights of tour

• Visit Stefania Maffei and her silkworms gorging themselves on mulberry leaves
• Festa della Primavera — Festival of Spring, at the walled town of Castiglione: exhibition of contemporary woollen textiles, meet the weavers; lunch based around wild and cultivated spring vegetables with bread baked by villagers in wood-fired ovens
• Hands-on cooking lesson with a local Italian chef
• Visit Cerasa farm: watch pecorino cheese and ricotta being made; spend afternoon sharing information about making vegetable dyes, dyeing wool and developing felt products
• Cheese, salumi and wine tasting at Andrea Bertucci’s parallel gastronomic universe, the Osteria ‘Il Vecchio Mulino’, beneath the 12th-century fortress in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana
• Private tour of the Laboratorio Maria Niemack: Niemack made a definitive collection of traditional local textiles and dress, handsome and simple fabrics made of wool, cotton and locally grown hemp; collection includes traditional countermarch loom
• Free day in the walled town of Lucca for sightseeing and shopping, or rent a bicycle and tour the tops of the renaissance walls
• Visit weaver who weaves traditional Lucchese patterns using local hand-spun hemp
• Visit modern mill that weaves cashmere scarves for top international fashion houses on traditional Garfagnana handlooms, and opportunity to shop at factory outlet
• Farewell dinner at Scacciaguai, Barga’s most interesting restaurant which uses traditional ingredients to produce intriguing dishes with a modern twist

Accommodation
Agriturismo ‘Vallecchia’, Località Treppignano, Fosciandora

I fell in love with Vallecchia the moment I entered its 15th-century hall. Owners Luciana and Dario have not gone for a makeover by an interior designer. Their family home remains as it has always been, except for electricity, modern plumbing and a swimming pool. They live in the ‘new’ 18th-century addition upstairs, while we have the old house below, with its open beam ceilings, terracotta floors, antique furniture and stupendous views of the Alpi Apuane across the Serchio Valley. Luciana works for the Comunità Montana, where she is oversees the Cerasa wool project — the perfect host for our tour.

Price per person:
€950 (Euros) (minimum 6 people)

Single Supplement:
€320 (Euros)

The Itinerary is subject to change if necessary due to weather or agricultural conditions or other events outside our control.

Includes:

• Accommodation for 5 nights
• Local ground transportation for 6 days
• Daily continental breakfast, 3 lunches, 5 dinners
• Entrance to Niemack collection, cooking lesson, guided visits with artisans

Does not include:

• Airfares
• Travel and cancellation insurance
• Wines and beverages, other than those served with meals, additional meals
• Personal expenses such as telephone, souvenirs, etc.

Notes

Meeting points
Pisa International Airport (Galileo Galilei)
or Lucca train station

Recommended flights
London Gatwick to Pisa Saturday
22 May 9.00–12.10 EasyJet 5231
Thursday 27 May 14.40–15.50 EasyJet 5234

London Heathrow to Pisa
Saturday 22 May 9.10–12.25 British Airways 0600
Thursday 27 May 13.45–14.54 British Airways 0603

London Stansted to Pisa
Saturday 22 May 11.20–14.30 Ryanair 582
Thursday 27 May 14.55–16.15 Ryanair 583

There are also flights to PIsa from: Birmingham (Ryanair), Bristol (EasyJet) and Edinburgh (Ryanair). Please check individual airline websites to find out whether there are suitable flights from these airports.

Attire Informal. Jeans or smart trousers are acceptable everywhere.
Weather in May — Lucca: 10°– 22°C, precipitation 61 mm

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.