September 25-October 3, 2010

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Join Rosetta Costantino, a native Calabrian, cooking teacher and expert guide to the region’s culinary riches, as we travel off the beaten track to the toe of Italy’s boot. You’ll begin in the mountains of Sila, at a quaint family hotel, where you’ll hunt in nearby woods for the famed porcini mushroom and enjoy sumptuous mushroom dishes for dinner. Prepare an evening meal in the kitchens of a bed & breakfast on the Ionic coast. On the East Coast, enjoy a cooking demo at a restored country farmhouse with an olive oil mill and garden. Then it’s on to the dazzling West Coast, to a cliffside hotel in Cetraro with its own organic farm, for another class. Finally, head South to a 5-star resort at Tropea, where you’ll attend a cooking class at a working farm.

This 9-day trip features:

• Stays at 4 locations: a family hotel in the mountains, a farmhouse in the countryside, a cliffside hotel and a 5-star resort nestled in a grove of eucalyptus and olive trees
• 4 cooking classes featuring the best of local products, sometimes picked that morning from the location’s farm
• All meals, including dinners at some the region’s best restaurants
• A mushroom hunt with picnic lunch
• Guided tours of colorful local produce and fish markets
• Excursions to top producers of olive oil, cheese, and wines, and local factories.

Accommodations

1. Hotel San Lorenzo. A recently renovated family-run hotel in the Sila mountains, near the woods where you’ll harvest porcini mushrooms.
2. Fattoria il Borghetto. On the East Coast, enjoy the hospitality of a converted farm near a swimming beach. Facilities include rooms in the country farmhouse, a pool, an olive oil mill, and a well-established restaurant.
3. Grand Hotel San Michele. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, this top hotel surrounds itself with an organic farm providing the hotel with fresh produce for its meals.
4. Hotel Porto Pirgos. Near Tropea, a seaside town, this five-star resort is nestled in a grove of eucalyptus and olive trees. Originally a residence of nobility, it has been converted to an 18-room luxury hotel directly on the sea, with its own private beach. A stay of enchanting rest and relaxation will round out the trip.