Shepherds+Samnites Brochure 2021
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Shepherds & Samnites WAY OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN SOUTH-CENTRAL ITALY Join us in Italy, May 31 to June 7, 2021. Ancient cities atop windswept hills … pristine medieval castles and churches against a splendid backdrop of snow-capped mountains … nature reserves with bears and wolves … full-bodied Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine … a hearty, sometimes spicy pastoral cooking … cutting-edge gourmet cuisine … www.elifanttours.com / [email protected] / +1-347-868-6345 Shepherds & Samnites WAY OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN SOUTH- CENTRAL ITALY ELIFANT’S MOST ADVENTUROUS ARCHAEO-CULINARY itinerary to date makes a long loop through the central-southern interior, from Rome and back, touching four regions (Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania). Along the way we visit sites populated by a number of ancient peoples, including the Samnites, who staunchly resisted a Rome not yet all-powerful. Today they resist mass tourism. If names like Amiternum, Peltuinum, and Saepinum send you to the atlas, well, didn’t you want to get off the beaten track? Except it is a beaten track: we follow routes trod for centuries by the seasonal droving from mountains to lowlands of once-enormous flocks and herds, a practice called transhumance. Transhumance in Italy, Greece, and Austria has just been inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Lest you think that rustic solitude lacks comfort and luxury, we’ll enjoy great accommodations and delicious dining, ranging from irresistibly traditional to the most avant-garde and sprinkled with Michelin stardust. The tour begins and ends in Rome. The itinerary covers parts of the Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania regions. What’s included Once the tour begins, you can go the whole week without opening your wallet except for your personal insurance, extras, snacks (which we doubt you’ll want), and maybe “When you pick us up that first day I can relax, some souvenir wine, local saffron, or top-quality extra virgin olive oil. turn it all over to you, and just go with the The tour price includes 7 nights bed and breakfast, at least one multi-course Italian flow.” meal (including wine) a day as well as other meals and snacks as described in the itinerary; all activities and transport as described; airport or train station transfers; and —Barbara A., Los Angeles tips. Plus the undivided attention of Elizabeth Bartman and Maureen Fant, Elifant’s principals, who plan and lead the tour themselves. This itinerary includes dinner, overnight, and gourmet breakfast at a Michelin three- star restaurant. • US$6850 per person sharing a double room • US$600 supplement for a private room Meal Key: B = breakfast L = Lunch D = Dinner S = Snack or tasting Copyright June 2020 The following program accurately reflects the tour as of June 2020. If circumstances Maureen Fant and Elizabeth Bartman, Elifant’s principals should impose any changes, rest assured that Plan B will be great too. PICTURED ON COVER: View of Roman amphitheater at Amiternum. THIS PAGE: Samnite theater at Pietrabbondante (left); gourmet lamb shank in Abruzzo (right) [email protected] / www.elifanttours.com / +1-347-868-6345 2 Shepherds & Samnites DAYS 1–3 Monday, May 31 ALBA FUCENS TO L’AQUILA Famous Abruzzesi: You’ll be met at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport (FCO) or Stazione Termini (central train station) to Benedetto Croce, philosopher join any guests who have arrived early. We leave Rome in the late morning by private, small Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet tour bus—our ride for the entire week—to drive east into the mountains, stopping for lunch Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), poet in a medieval borgo (village) near the site of Alba Fucens. Dean Martin, singer and actor Alba was a hilltop colony founded by Rome to challenge local Samnite power. It Corradino D’Ascanio, designer of the Vespa preserves much of its original Republican architecture and makes an ideal introduction to the week. Its Italic temple is now incorporated into a Romanesque church, and its spectacular amphitheater was donated by its native son Macro, who foiled Sejanus’s plot against the emperor Tiberius. We’ll spend the night in the lovely medieval town of L’Aquila. Our first evening is devoted “We were so enraptured by the sights, the to getting acquainted over aperitivi and a light buffet, as well as illustrated previews by Liz scholarship, the camaraderie, and the sensational and Maureen of the week’s archaeology and cuisine. L, S cuisine that we cannot stop talking about it and cannot wait to sign up again.” —Sandra G., Sausalito Tuesday, June 1 ABRUZZO’S ANCIENT PLACES Our itinerary this morning encompasses two little-known Roman sites, Amiternum and Peltuinum. Lying at the foot of low hills, Amiternum today preserves two spectacular ancient entertainment centers: a stone theater with unique stage scenery, and a massive brick amphitheater. Its 1st-century villa may have belonged to the famous historian Sallust. Peltuinum, isolated on a wind-swept mountain, makes a dramatic contrast. Its walls are impressive, but so is the theater whose medieval reuse is the object of new excavations. Continuing southeast, we stop for lunch at an agriturismo that produces almost everything it serves, including olive oil and ancient varieties of legumes. Sacrosanct tradition and joyous frivolity merge after lunch. Our destination is Sulmona to tour Italy’s most famous maker of confetti, the sugared almonds given as souvenir gifts at christenings, weddings, and other happy events (guests at Prince Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle received them). A small museum and shop display some of the myriad shapes into which they can be worked. Predictably, “floral” displays are favorites. Of course we can taste (and buy). The evening is free to explore Sulmona (population 24,500), where we spend the night. The city is built over the remains of ancient Sulmo. B, L, S Wednesday, June 2 CHIETI This morning’s drive to Chieti, a gracious small city, Abruzzo’s largest, skirts several national parks that are home to bears and wolves. Our destination is the neoclassical archaeological museum set in pretty forested park. Its new displays document in encyclopedic detail the art and archaeology of the various ancient peoples of Abruzzo: the celebrated Warrior from Capestrano has a dramatically lit room to himself on the ground floor, but he shares the The seal of Sulmona recalls Ovid’s phrase museum with marbles, ceramics, coins, and other finds, all beautifully exhibited. Sulmona mihi patria est. After a light lunch at a park café a few steps from the museum, we visit a second, newer Sulmona is my homeland. archaeological museum (do you see why we love Chieti?), known as La Civitella, set into the remains of a hilltop amphitheater. It is largely dedicated to the ancient history of Chieti and its peoples, but the museum’s tour-de-force is the room of reconstructed Roman temple pediments decorated with brightly painted terracotta figures of gods and their mythic friends. PICTURED ABOVE: The Warrior of Evening and overnight will be in the small town of Guardiagrele, where a superb dinner Capestrano, Chieti (left); the theater at awaits us. B, L, D Peltuinum (right) [email protected] / www.elifanttours.com / +1-347-868-6345 3 Shepherds & Samnites DAYS 4–5 “I can't imagine a more delicious Thursday, June 3 THE ADRIATIC AND BACK way to tour in Italy. … I can't Although our focus is the mountainous hinterland, we can scarcely ignore how near we are to remember having so much fun!” the central Adriatic coast. Our first stop is the Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere, originally an early Christian monastery —Anne V., New York built atop a Roman temple of Venus. As we go southward along the coast, we can see trabocchi, traditional fishing platforms anchored to the shore by wooden bridges, typical of Abruzzo and Molise. Our destination is the coastal town of Vasto, both to taste brodetto, the renowned fish soup of the south-central Adriatic, and to visit the excellent archaeological museum. And then it’s back into the hills to spend the afternoon at Pietrabbondante, a Samnite city with a panoramic view over the plain below. The grandeur of its theater and temples was a rebuke to Hannibal, who had destroyed them in the Second Punic War. Our final stop of the day, where we spend the night, is Castel di Sangro, which was known mainly for its hiking and skiing until the arrival of Niko Romito and his third Michelin star. His Ristorante Reale, where we dine on truly cutting-edge Italian cuisine, is one of only eleven restaurants in Italy so honored and the only one south of Rome. “[At Saepinum] I sat, astonished to see in The restaurant and hotel are located in a 16th-century monastery stunningly renovated to modern Italy a ruin just as our ancestors of modern luxury standards. B, L, D the eighteenth century saw one, as part of an agricultural landscape. I was reminded of an etching by Piranesi, a water-color by Samuel Prout, or a drawing by van Heemskerck. Here was a perfect romantic ruin of the eighteenth century, wild flowers growing in the foundations of the houses, Friday, June 4 SHEPHERDS AND SAMNITES goats, cropping grass in the streets, girls Chef Romito’s guests are treated to a lavish and generous “gourmet breakfast.” After doing wearing men’s boots clumping down a lane justice to the exquisite juices, yogurts, pastries, jams, cheeses, and so much more, we resume and suddenly appearing with a herd of our drive south through picturesque greenery to the large and beautiful site of Saepinum, an cows upon the Via Triumphalis.” extremely well-kept secret.