Wednesday, September 06, 2006

"Agriturismo" Italian Farmhouse Inn, Newest Tourist Experience

The ANNOTICO Report

One MUST visit those typical "Tourist" places of Venice, Florence and Rome, etc.

But if one is a "seasoned" traveler, one might want to include in their next trip to Italy the "Agriturismo" experience, that can be anything from a working farm, or fancy villa with a pool, to a few motel rooms added onto someone's house.

In Browns’ Guides 2006 version she lists 260 Italy's B & Bs

The idea caters to a desire among foreign travelers to connect with locals and find alternatives to impersonal hotels, and the locals desire to be enriched by the contact with foreigners.

"Price-wise, they became great values," after the Italian government began offering tax incentives to owners who opened their homes to tourists.

FALL IN WITH THE LOCALS FOR A TRUE TASTE OF ITALY, AGRITURISMO -STYLE

By Carol Pucci

! The Seattle Times

To The Mercury News

September 5, 2006

When my husband and I decided to take four family members from Ohio on their first trip to Italy, we wanted them to experience more than just the tourist sites in Venice, Florence and Rome.

We hoped to share with them what we've always considered to be Italy's greatest treasures - its culture, people and food. For this, we headed to southern Italy, where 80 percent of Italian Americans have their roots - including our family.

Our relatives not only survived Naples, a city some consider to be one of country's roughest, they loved it, mostly because they loved our hotel, the Pinto-Storey, a 16-room hotel in an 1878 building overlooking a square in the safe and relaxed Chiaia neighborhood near the historic center.

Would we be as lucky for the next three nights at the agriturismo I booked in Molise, a rural region so small and unknown that most guidebooks leave it out?

La Sorgente was about four miles from Macchiagodena, a village between the cities of Isernia and Campobasso. The location was perfect. It was a few miles from the towns where my husband's grandparents were born

Everyone in our group was happy about the price - $120 per couple including dinner and breakfast - but, booking anything sight unseen over the Internet is always a risk. And in Italy, an "agriturismo," the Italian equivalent of a farmhouse inn, can be anything from a working farm or fancy villa with a pool to a few motel rooms added onto someone's house.

My reputation as our group travel planner was on the line.

We followed a sign down a dirt road to the bottom of a hill and spotted a stone farmhouse with a little wooden bridge, a water wheel and sheep grazing in the meadow - just as advertised.

Luciana Ruscitto, who runs La Sorgente with her brother Carlo, greeted us and showed us to the rooms they remodeled a few years ago in her grandparents' 200-year-old farmhouse. Everything inside was new, including the bathrooms with wooden shutters that opened to mountain views. There were antique desks and wardrobes. Family photos decorated exposed brick walls, and the beds had handmade quilts for chilly nights.

Long popular with Italians looking for a weekend escape from city, agriturismo inns such as La Sorgente cater to a desire among more foreign travelers to connect with locals and find alternatives to impersonal hotels.

"Price-wise, they're great values," said Karen Brown, the California-based publisher and author of Karen Brown's Guides. Her 2006 Italy B&B guidebook lists 260 inns ranging from simple farmhouses to country villas.

Brown published her first guidebook in 1992 with 129 listings, after the Italian government began offering tax incentives to owners who opened their homes to tourists.

Now there are so many, "we find that it's important to stay selective," she said. Some, she warned are run more as businesses, and are losing their personal touch. "You really want to stay somewhere where they really want guests, not just with someone who hands you a key and you never see again."

One of the best parts about staying in an agriturismo is the food. Set your expectations high when it comes to the evening meal. Lower them when it's time for breakfast, and you won't be disappointed.

Dinners are usually four-course affairs with wines, meats, cheeses and other specialties produced on the farm. Italian breakfasts, on the other hand, are sparse, and it's rare to be offered more than some toast, a little jam and coffee.

In the evenings, you might find yourself sitting around with other guests and family members, or at your own table if the agriturismo opens its restaurant to the public.

At La Sorgente, Carlo and Luciana's mother and sister were cooking the night we arrived. We were the only overnight guests, but 10 members of the local soccer team had made reservations for dinner.

Luciana set out ceramic pitchers of wine and plate after plate of homemade antipasti, including three types of cured meats and freshly made ricotta cheese.

After that came a choice of pasta, either penne with local truffles, or gnocchi in tomato sauce, followed by baked chicken and a mixed grill of pork, sausage and lamb, all from animals raised on the farm.

The soccer players were getting loud and it was almost 11 p.m. We'd been sitting at the table for almost three hours.
What started out as an intimate evening turned into a ruckus, but our stomachs won out.

"We've got to figure out a way to eat here again," someone in our group said. Despite an invitation from our Italian relatives for lunch the next day, we managed to find room for a second, and thankfully quieter, dinner at La Sorgente before moving on.

Anyone who's trolled through the "Italian Agriturismo" listings posted by travelers on guidebook author Rick Steves' Graffiti Wall has probably noticed the buzz about a place called Italy Farm Stay, an organic family farm on the edge of Abruzzo National Park, between Rome and Naples.

Most of the talk revolves around energetic Antonello Siragusa, 28. After earning a degree in English and Spanish literature, and working as a waiter in San Francisco's Castro District, he returned home to central-southern Italy wondering what he could do to make a living there.

That led to his idea to convert his family's farm into a different kind of agriturismo - not a resort or an inn that emphasizes gourmet meals, but a working farm where travelers can take a break from the cities and spend a few days hiking, learning to make pasta and getting a taste of rural life.

The family makes or grows everything it serves - asparagus, beans, figs, honey and the grapes Antonello's father, Giuseppe, uses to make his wine. Everything is organic, and student volunteers do much of the work. Officially part of Lazio, the region that includes Rome, the Siragusa farm borders Abruzzo, a wilderness region unspoiled by industry and development, but relatively unknown to foreign tourists.

Antonello opened his farm a year ago with three rooms for guests in his family's home, and recently added three more in a converted cow barn and storage shed next door. The decor was flea market-meets-farmhouse, quirky but comfortable enough. Hanging in our room was a hammock near a window with mountain views. There was an antique wardrobe in one corner, and one of the student volunteers had painted a forest scene on the wall.

Giuseppe Siragusa started his farm as a hobby so his family could enjoy healthy food. Antonello's mission is to teach guests a little about where that food comes from and how it's produced.

Dinners here - mostly simple soups and pasta and lots of Giuseppe's homemade white wine - were around the family's dining room table.
Antonello organizes activities, such as hikes, cooking lessons with his mother, and evening walks to the home of a local shepherd to watch him make cheese.

Looking for a base from which to explore the region called Apulia, we found Agriturismo Montepaolo in the town of Conversano, about 5 miles from the Adriatic coast, just south of Bari.

More country estate than working farm, Montepaolo is a 16th-century stone villa once used for hunting parties. Ninny Bassi's family bought it in the 1800s and used it as a summer home. Later, she set aside her career as an art teacher to convert the house into an elegant, 10-room inn for overnight guests.

We spent some of the quietest nights of our trip here in an airy room with marble floors, antique wardrobe and beds, and a modern bathroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows opened to a view of the pool, where guests eat breakfast in the warmer months.

If you've never stayed in an agriturismo, the first question you ask yourself is if you should stay for dinner or try a local restaurant. At 20 euros extra each, about $25, dinner at Montepaolo was a splurge for us, but Ninny and her helpers put on a feast akin to a three-hour culinary walk through the Apulian countryside, and we happily followed along.

A young Brazilian helper named Leiliane practiced her English with us as she served pitchers of homemade wine along with plates of air-cured ham and homemade cheeses. These were followed by toasted squares of bread topped with tomatoes, basil and homemade olive oil, "to be eaten not with the fork; with the hands," Ninny instructed.

Next came pasta tossed with smoked sausage, tomatoes and zucchini; veal; roasted fennel; and finally, tiny strawberries with cream in lemon and almond liquors.

Over the next couple of days, we followed Ninny's recommendations for visiting a few towns not mentioned in any of the guidebooks.
The chili-pepper-chocolate gelato in the nearby seaside town of Polignano a Mare was the most unusual flavor we found in all of Italy.

We explored the towns and beehive-shaped trulli houses around Alberobello, and on the spur of the moment, pulled into a park-and-ride and took the bus into Bari. For dinner, however, there was only one destination worth considering: A table tucked into one of the stone alcoves in the dining room at Montepaolo.
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IF YOU GO:
FINDING AN AGRITURISMO:
_See www.agriturismo.it, an easy-to-use site that organizes farmhouse inns by region and province, with pictures and prices. Also try www.italyby.com.
_Travelers offer recommendations on Rick Steves' graffiti wall at www.ricksteves.com. Go to "Sleeping" and "Italian Agriturismos."
_Contact the Touring Club of Italy for a book called "Italian Farm Vacations." See www.touringclubofitaly.com.
_Karen Brown's Italy B&B guidebook ($19.95 at bookstores) lists 260 B&Bs and farmhouse inns. See www.karenbrown.com.
_Many farms offer free room and board in exchange for help with the chores. Contact World-Wid! e Opportunities on Organic Farms (www.wwoof.org) or Help Exchange at www.helpx.net.
SOUTHERN ITALY PICKS:
_ Italy Farm Stay, organic working farm in Pescosolido (near Abruzzo National Park, between Rome and Naples). Call 011-39-340-251-7941 or see www.italyfarmstay.com. Rates: $35 (single) and $50 (double) with breakfast and shared bath; $50 (single) and $62 (double) with private bath. Activities: (cooking lessons, etc.) around $8 per person. Optional dinner: $10.50.
_La Sorgente, Macchiagodena (in Molise, between Campobasso and Isernia). Call 011-39-0865-810-199 or see www.agriturismolasorgente.it. Rates: $32-$38 per person, B&B; $58-$69 per person, with breakfast and dinner.
_Agriturismo Montepaolo, Conversano, Apulia (good base for exploring Bari, the trulli in Alberobello and coastal towns around Apulia). Call 011-39-0804-955-087 or see www.montepaolo.it. Rates: $100-$155 for two persons (single rates available), with breakfast. Dinner: $25 per person.
T! RAVELER'S TIPS:
_An agriturismo can turn out to be a less personal experience than you might expect. The owners might be juggling several businesses at once - overnight guests, weddings, receptions, a restaurant open to the public - just to make ends meet. Some are run by hired help.
_ You won't find porters, elevators or room service. Ask about things such as whether rooms have private baths and if there's an extra charge for air conditioning or heat off-season.
_Dinners are usually optional and are priced separately.
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Carol Pucci: cpucci@seattletimes.com

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mercurynews/living/travel/15442425.htm

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