4-DAY CIAO ABRUZZO TOUR
Dates: Saturday 8th – Tuesday 11th July
Price – €1,265
TOUR INCLUDES 3 Nights Accommodation, 3 Full Breakfasts, 3 Excursions, 3 Dinners, 3 Lunches, 1 Cooking Lesson, 1 Tasting,
Join Chef Ezio in Abruzzo Italy on a 4-day for a Ciao Abruzzo tour. Dreamy landscapes, adventures with delicious and diverse regional foods and wines sampled in hilltop and mountain villages and on the Adriatic coastline.
Along the way you can revel in the beauty of Italy’s best-kept secret, Abruzzo, whose lush Apennine Mountains and national parks are home to bears, wolves and lynx. Its rolling hills boast some of Italy’s most beautiful hill towns as well as award-winning vineyards, its Adriatic coastline plenty of Blue Flag beaches and a marine park.
DAY 1
From pick up at Rome’s Leonardo airport, we’ll begin away our journey towards the restored Benedictine Monastery of Grancia dei Celestini, where George Clooney stayed whilst filming The American.
It’s set in the middle of the stunning medieval town of Sulmona, the birthplace of Ovid and the world’s favourite sugared almonds known as confetti. This lively mountain town sits in the heart of the Peligna Valley were 3000 years ago the name Italia was first given to the Italian peninsula in 90 bc.
On our way to Sulmona, we will travel to Pettorano sul Gizio, one of Italy’s most beautiful villages that is listed as a Borghi Piu Belli and much loved by the acclaimed Dutch graphic artist MC Escher for its incredible views out onto the Peligna Valley.
We’ll have lunch and our first cooking lesson! We’ll learn how to make lump-free Polenta, the local speciality Polenta Rognosa & polenta chips and sauces and toppings to dress this unique polenta.
AFTERNOON
We’ll walk off our delicious 3-course lunch by a visit to the 11th century Castello Cantelmo on the way to Bella Vista where Escher sat for his stunning lithograph of the valley.
EVENING
We’ll return to Sulmona for an aperitivo and welcome dinner served by Chef Claudio in the courtyard of the monastery.
DAY 2
We will meet up after an early breakfast for a quick shopping stop at Sulmona Market before we head to Capestrano to go canoeing.
The turquoise Il Tirino river from Bussi sits within the Gran Sasso National Park. This is an incredible, colourful trip to relax both your mind and body whilst discovering the heritage of the mountains and sampling water celery.
AFTERNOON
We will make our way up to the spectacular high basin shaped plateau Campo Imperatore (Little Tibet), for a traditional Abruzzese picnic at the mountain refuge, Ristoro Mucciante. Picnics in Abruzzo always include arrosticini, the delectable grilled skewers of meat that the shepherds used to eat and which now becoming one of Europe’s most popular street foods.
After lunch, we will return to Sulmona for a cooking lesson with Chef Ezio and have dinner together.
DAY 3
MORNING
Pack your beach gear as after breakfast we will depart for the Adriatic and the Trabocchi Coast.
You will be quirkily wined and dined aboard a trabocco for 3.5 hours, delighting in a 10-course fish feast in what we guarantee will become your most memorable beach dining experience! Expect a succession of fish and shellfish served sushi-style, drizzled with local olive oil, mixed into salads, served with fresh kinds of pasta, grilled, baked whole fish and crunchy breaded fillets.
Since 1887, these sustainable fishing machines positioned on stilts above a sparkling sea have been used by the local population to catch fish, and some now enjoy a double role as Abruzzo’s most novel restaurants.
EVENING
After our traditional passegiato (mid-afternoon walk) on the beach, we’ll make our way back to Sulmona for a wine tasting in the original room where Monks used to make wine for medicinal use and to serve pilgrims at our monastery base. We’ll sample Abruzzo’s 5 most established grapes whose wines are glorious enough for US wine dealers stock and have a light dinner.
DAY 4
Return to Rome