Learning Holidays in Abruzzo Italy

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PM

Lunch, presentation of attendance certificates.  Free dinner   

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Day 12 Monday 21^st  

AM

Arrivederci and drop off at Rome Fiumicino

Read more about our tailor-made holidays.

All About Saltash U3A – Autumn 2013 Magazine

This is an article published on University of Third Age of Saltash  Magazine by Pen Foreman, one of our kind guests that we thank a lot!

Italia Sweet Italia

In May a group of members visited the central Italian region of Abruzzo. The tailor-made learning holiday was created for us by Fabrizio Lucci of Ita-lia Sweet Italia. Our base was the town of Vasto on the Adriatic, due east of Rome; our aim was to experience the local culture including its food and wine, traditional arts and crafts, and to generally enjoy the visit. Thanks to our U3A organiser, Den, who had broken her leg and could not come with us, we occasionally got more than we had bargained for.

As we travelled east from Rome we saw the mountains and national parks where we would later spend some time. Our ‘Welcome’ meal that evening set the scene for all of our dining experiences throughout the holiday: 4 or 5 courses of local, in-season specialities including salami, artichokes and bruschetta, accompanied by Montepulciano d’abruzzo wine and liquors.

Our learning activities began with one of two pottery painting classes: the first was held in a studio in the centre of old Vasto; the second, some days later, took place at a vineyard in the surrounding countryside. While our efforts did not quite match the majolica we saw at the region’s oldest pottery studio in the mountain village of Castelli, they were better than we might have hoped . At Castelli, we saw more examples of local and inter-national ceramic art: the interior of the tiny church of St. Donato – completely composed of painted tiles; the Ceramics Museum of Castelli; and the region’s art school. This latter houses the truly stunning Collection of Inter-national Contemporary Ceramic Art.

Back to the food. Fabrizio’s mother, Anna Maria, took us to Vasto’s colour-ful local market to shop for ingredients prior to ‘lunch with a local family’ which took place at the country home of Fabrizio’s extended family. Here we made pasta outside in the sunshine, surrounded by lemon trees and distant views over the sea. At lunch, we were served the pasta; fourteen of us sat at table; and, later, a neigh-bour, who was famed local-ly for his folk singing, also joined in. We agreed that an ordinary package tour simply could not offer time spent like this.

Aunt Rosa was a member of the Universita delle Tre Eta del Vasto (U3A to us), and we were invited to their annual open day by chairperson, Roberto. He explained, in faultless English, that their membership of 600 was made up of a range of ages because they accept anyone over the age of 16yrs.

We were lucky to see a traditional event of the area, the Punta Penna cele-bration. A statue of the Madonna was transported by sea, and then carried in procession to bless the fishermen and their boats; quite a moving cere-mony and one treated with reverence by the locals. Afterwards, the chair-person of the Mare Nostrum (fisherman’s association) joined us at an open-air seafood lunch on the cliffs above.

As one would expect, seafood plays a large part in local cooking. One of our water colour classes took place on a trabocco along the coast. Trabocci are fishing decks, complete with small houses, constructed on stilts on the shoreline. While those remaining are now used as small restaurants, the trabocci look very picturesque, and provided us with a great opportunity for painting – and an introduction to the local speciality seafood stew, cooked on site and containing an incredible mix of fish and crustaceans: not for the faint-hearted.

Another food-themed day was spent making sheep-milk ricotta cheese at a local farm. Having to actually first milk the sheep, we decided that, since our U3A organiser could no longer run, she had better learn to hide before we got home! We were served some of the cheese at lunch and given some different local cheese to take away.

Our final attempt at producing traditional Italian fare was the making of passata, again under the tutelage of mamma Anna Maria and papa Angelo. Although, as explained by Fabrizio, the best time would have been in August when the tomatoes are sweeter, we came away with our own produce – which we agreed was better than one can buy in England.

It is impossible to cover everything we experienced on this holiday – the charming and historic town of Vasto; the palazzos; piazzas; ancient and modern sculpture and paintings; the local bars. And then there is the time we spent visiting, for example, the ancient bell foundry in Agnone, which makes bells for the Vatican – each one taking three months of skilled crafts-manship to produce. We did, however, each have a favourite reminiscence of the trip: for Carole, it was the Rossetti Theatre’s music festival; for Betty, the sense of inclusion and welcome we had from all of the people we met during various activities. My own is a snapshot of Brenda, blithely bathing her feet in the Adriatic – while one of her shoes floated out to sea. Priceless!

Pen Foreman