Agriturismo - Italian Farm Life

Agritourismo

An Agriturismo sounds romantic – and in many ways it is.  Staying at a small working farm in rural Italy, surrounded by olive trees, hazelnut trees, and vineyards.  

All this bounty -- the honey, the figs, 

the cheese and fruit are grown 

at the agritourismo...

Meals created by Mama – using honey from their hives, cheese from their sheep's milk, tomatoes and figs they’ve grown, pork from their pigs fed on a hazelnut diet – probably even wine they produce themselves.  It sounds ideal, doesn’t it? 

And it is….but… 

We’re far from everything.  Since we walked here, we’re stranded until we walk again the next day.
We were usually the only guests.  A single table set up in a huge dining room.  No menus – just what came out of the kitchen, which kept us mildly confused.

This came after a huge 

portion of lasagna...

One morning we waited half an hour at the breakfast table waiting for eggs and fruit, not understanding that two pieces of bread was breakfast. 

At another agriturismo, we enjoyed our dinner, a hearty portion of divine lasagna prepared by Mama. We had already gotten up from the table – satiated  and content – when Mama waved us back, pointing to a huge platter of pork chops and potatoes she had just laid out.  We sat back down and did our best to show our appreciation by splitting a farm-raised chop.

Maria is an architect who

also helped her parents

on the agritourismo

The next time, we enjoyed a lovely pasta, homemade 

We created a "laundry drying" 

farm of our own....

antipasto…not eating too much – anticipating the pork chop to come.  But it didn’t….

At a third agriturismo, we spent a rest day to recover and refuel from long days of walking, only to find that the proprietors had left the property that morning without leaving us anything to eat until they returned that evening.  

We picked grapes from the vines to snack on...

To get to another agriturismo, we had to navigate the final 1/2 mile using sketchy 

John studied Bridge when we had

 a day on our own at the agritourismo

directions that provided a "short cut" for walkers. It led us over a tiny foot bridge, into deep woods on an overgrown trail with no markings, and up steep hills that required us to crawl on our hands and knees.  

We arrived at the agriturismo covered in burrs and looked at each other in astonishment – what the heck, Via Francigena?

But as you can see from these photos, agriturismos really are lovely places to stay…and all part of our Italy adventure.