Southern Italy

[Kevin72]

Is it traditional in Neapolitan doughs to let them ripen or age for so long, or do they pretty much make and bake the same day? Is there any part of Italy where such a long ripening is traditional, if not in Naples?

[albiston]

Is it traditional in Neapolitan doughs to let them ripen or age for so long, or do they pretty much make and bake the same day? Is there any part of Italy where such a long ripening is traditional, if not in Naples?

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There are others here who can reply with more knowledge, in particular our member Pizza Napoletana who is writing a book on the topic. Since he drops by only occasionaly I'll try to reply leaving room for his corrections.

For what I know longer times are quite traditional in Naples, though one should be thinking 12-16 hours and not 24 or 48. I would imagine that pizzerie that still use sourdough (very few) might ripen their dough even longer. I think long times were usual in the past. Then, once the stronger Canadian and US flour sorts became more widely available, many pizzerie developed methods, wich allowed for quicker rises (and less work, less risk, etc) but compromised dough flavor, while others stuck to the old recipes. I have the feeling that today there is a new generation of pizzaioli (pizza chefs?), not necessairly tied to the Neapolitan tradition, that are rediscovering tradition and going beyond that.

[Pizza Napoletana]

Thanks for inviting me in the discussion.

Traditionally the dough was always made the day before, with the average mention by Albiston and a maximum of 24 hours; even with a starter, you would not go over that time, as the dough gluten starts to deteriorate...

Regarding Micky at Happy Hour,

I do agree he does a great pizza al taglio (which is basically the best version of focaccia), however as far as I know, Micky let the dough ferment in a cellar (no refrigeration used) fo about 24 hours. On of his best point is the hydration level, which is very very high

Ciao

.

Is it traditional in Neapolitan doughs to let them ripen or age for so long, or do they pretty much make and bake the same day? Is there any part of Italy where such a long ripening is traditional, if not in Naples?

←

There are others here who can reply with more knowledge, in particular our member Pizza Napoletana who is writing a book on the topic. Since he drops by only occasionaly I'll try to reply leaving room for his corrections.

For what I know longer times are quite traditional in Naples, though one should be thinking 12-16 hours and not 24 or 48. I would imagine that pizzerie that still use sourdough (very few) might ripen their dough even longer. I think long times were usual in the past. Then, once the stronger Canadian and US flour sorts became more widely available, many pizzerie developed methods, wich allowed for quicker rises (and less work, less risk, etc) but compromised dough flavor, while others stuck to the old recipes. I have the feeling that today there is a new generation of pizzaioli (pizza chefs?), not necessairly tied to the Neapolitan tradition, that are rediscovering tradition and going beyond that.

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[albiston]

Sicily, at last. During our stay we chose to set our home base in the charming Hotel relais in Modica. The city itself, or better the old parts of Modica Alta and Bassa are a gem of Sicilian Baroque architecture, the people are friendly and happy to help... but you better be fit: half of the streets you see on a Modica map are actually stairs .

We spent our first day doing the tourist thing, though every time we stopped someone to ask for directions we also got dining tips without asking. It just gives you the idea of what place food has in people's minds around here. Unfortunately all the places that were suggested were closed on that day, so we more or less followed our nose and landed in a very simple rosticceria, making some fantastic scacci, a savory bread/focaccia rolled up like a strudel. The one with ricotta and sausage was simply fantastic, and at one euro apiece I don't think one could find a better price quality ratio anywhere. The place is in Modica Bassa, in the small via Pozzo Barone, just at the end of the Corso Umberto. I've always wondered where the Stomboli bread that's popular in the US and UK comes from: after seeing scacci I suppose it is an evolution of this Modican dish.

The following day we had an early start, looking forward to a morning of fish dishes demos and tasting. My wife and me had been kindly invited by Ronald Ashri and Katia Amore, who run the loveSicily holiday service, to join one of the classes of their Autumn cookery course. 9 AM is probably not the time most people would choose to power taste fish dishes, but it was great fun, especially after a few glasses of the different Sicilian whites that were served along with the fish. I'll only give a brief description of the dishes demoed by chef Savatore Guarino of Masseria degli Ulivi in Noto, but if you have any questions just fire away, I took quite a few notes.

After a little gutting and cleaning to get our hands dirty straightaway, we kicked of cooking preparing the two fish stocks we would be using during the class: a prawn shell stock and one made with the rock fish below.

Anchovy tortino, filled with tomatoes, bread crumbs, herbs and Ragusano cheese, with tomato EVOO emulsion (made saying "we add just a dash of EVOO" and then pouring half a bottle of the stuff in with the tomatoes ):

Fried sardines stuffed with a tuna tomato sauce, served on a violet cauliflower puree and fish stock "soup". Looks a bit unusual but tasted great.

One of the main focuses of the class was clearly tuna, which simply pervades Sicilian costal cooking. Chef Salvatore had bough a nice piece of tail filet from a 200kg (or was it 300?) tuna at the market that very morning, and he demonstrated two dishes with it, a classic one and a slightly more modern/creative one.

While the more traditional cipollata di tonno was simmering, we turned to the "modern" dish.

The tuna, cut into steaks, was first grilled on a fire made with citrus, olive and carob wood which smelled simply divine.

The steaks were served with melted ricotta-filled mozzarella on top of the tomato-EVOO emulsion (used for the anchovy tortino) enriched with fish stock. So simple, yet one of the best dishes we tasted during our vacation.

The tuna cipollata. the sauce is, as far as I can remember: loads of onions, tomato, EVOO (clearly), oregano and some Ragusano cheese. Cheese with fish is a blasphemy for a nEapolitan like me, but it works great here.

The other attraction of the day was this big dentex

It was cooked in a sea salt crust after being stuffed with pomegranate slices and served with a fig-pomegranate sauce and some red pepper marmalade.

If that wasn't enough (boy were we stuffed by then) we finished the morning off with dolphinfish served in stimpirata, a sweet-sour preparation usually reserved for rabbit, which I forgot to take a picture of.

The rest of the day was spent visiting the estate of Felice Modica tasting some of the wines and olive oils produced here. The wines are nice, but the real star is olive oil. The two EV oils produced here have been awarded quite a few prizes and earned many positive reviews, like this one from the Lo mejor de la gastronomia's initiator and editor Rafael Garcia Santos.

No big dinner after all the stuff we had during the day and since we were going to have lunch at Il Duomo the next day (I wrote about that here).

[Kevin72]

Wow, wow, wow.

And that was just the morning?

What's ragusano cheese like?

It looks like the tuna wasn't cooked all the way through, the way you've noted is traditional. Do you think tuna cooked more rare is coming into vogue now?

What was the weather like? Did you have a lot of problems with the seasonal closings?

[albiston]

Wow, wow, wow.

And that was just the morning?

Indeed, though we only had a little bite from each of the dihses... well mostly. I couldn't resist the grilled tuna dish. It was just sooo nic e that I had to have one taste, then another and then just a few more bites.

What's ragusano cheese like?

Ragusano is a sort of caciocavallo, which is peculiar because it is shaped into a bis "brick" before it is tied up and left hanging for the seasoning stage. The taste and use varies with age. It can be cooked (fried for example) when young and unsalted. The one with middle aging is used as table cheese and the forms that are aged 12 months or more are usually employed grated. The older the cheese gets the more it loses the characteristics of cheeses made with the pasta filata method (like mozzarella, scamorza, etc.). The best Ragusano cheeses are made from the milk of cows of the Modicana race which are free to eat the wild grasses and herbs growing in the area. More (and a couple of pics) in the next post, as soon as I finish touching up the pic files.

It looks like the tuna wasn't cooked all the way through, the way you've noted is traditional.  Do you think tuna cooked more rare is coming into vogue now?

You get both now, though probably medium or rare tuna is easier to find in "creative" places.

What was the weather like?  Did you have a lot of problems with the seasonal closings?

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We were quite lucky with the weather, temperatures in the upper 20C- lower 30C range and only a little rain on our last day. Compared to Puglia last year we had very few problems with seasonal closing, but I guess that has to do with Southern Sicily having a longer tourist season, though we met no masses of tourists during our stay.

Edited October 6, 2005 by albiston (log)

[hathor]

That looked like a fabulous fish class! I'm jealous! Just having access to those fish is incredible. I'm having culture shock being back in NY, all the fish here is so 'processed', no heads, no bones, just fish flesh so clean you have no real idea what fish its from.

Would you mind describing how the two stocks were made? Also a little more description on the tomato-EVOO emulsion.

Grazie!

[albiston]

That looked like a fabulous fish class! I'm jealous! Just having access to those fish is incredible.  I'm having culture shock being back in NY, all the fish here is so 'processed', no heads, no bones, just fish flesh so clean you have no real idea what fish its from.

Don't get me started: at least you can get great fish in NYC. Here.... .

Would you mind describing how the two stocks were made? Also a little more description on the tomato-EVOO emulsion.

Grazie!

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Sure. The tomato-EVOO emulsion is extremely simple. Just take some nice ripe tomatoes, peel them and seed them, then chop them fine. Puree them with an immersion blender, add a little salt (which you'll correct to taste at the end), and start pouring a thin but continuous stream of EVOO in the tomato puree while blending all the time. When it starts thickening up and turns from red to a more orange tint it's done. You'll need quite a bit of EVOO.

The stock were made using a method I had never seen before, using ice. Essentially the base ingredient, be it the scorpion fish or the shrimp shells, were "browned" in EVOO in a pot big enough to hold the fishes in a single layer, together with some aromatics (I think we used only onion, tomato and just a touch of garlic). When the fish were done, i.e. when the first signs of caramelization appeared, chef Guarino covered the contents of the pot with crushed ice (just enough to cover the fish completely) and reduced the flame. We waited till the ice melted and the stock started to simmer at a slow boil. After 1-1.5 hours, the stock was sieved and reduced a little.

The result was an incredibly tasty stock, but a cloudy one.

On that issue I would be curious to know what experiences you have had with stock during your Slow Food classes.

[hathor]

What was the reasoning for using the crushed ice? For one thing, ice is sort of a rare commodity in Italy.

Funny thing about the stocks we made, they were much more 'simple' than what I was used to doing. I always do a slight carmelization on the onion/celery/garlic, but most of the chefs were just throwing the 'trinity' into a pot of salted water. Maybe one or two of the chefs would scorch a halved white onion on the cut side before throwing it into the pot. Although for fish stock the fish bones were a necessity, shrimp shells got tossed in the garbage. I think it may hark back to that adage about the tongue not being able to process more than three flavors, that could be why the stocks were so simply flavored, but I'm not really sure. It was surprising to me and became sort of a pet project to watch the different stock techniques.

[Andrew Fenton]

This is a fun thread, Alberto, not least because I just got back from a few days in southern Italy, followed by a week in Sicily. A couple of thoughts:

Still, there's plenty of interesting finds to see. I was particularly intrigued by the "votive dishes" section, a small collection of dishes plated with ceramic replicas of food items. Guessing what the unidentified objects were was fun, but even better was looking at the items that strongly recall modern foods. In the one below, for example, the foremost item looks incredibly like a Spanish churro:

Did the Greek invent the pastry bag and churros?

Delicious, delicious churros... though I think that this is actually a small cucumber, or gourd. Here are a couple of similar votive gourds, from the museum in Reggio Calabria:

There are tons of these votive foods around, by the way; I've seen them all over South Italy and Sicily, at Syracuse, Palermo, even Aidone. Some of them are really remarkable-- I saw some great votive animals (rabbits, tons of pigeons, even a really remarkable sea turtle)-- but the fruits and vegetables are really my favorites.

I have a question, in our travels around Italy to mozzarella and parmigiana producers, one thing that struck us American students, was that the cows did not have access to outdoor fields to graze in or just to be outside. The cows were in one barn, and twice a day they walked to the milking barn and that was it.  It seems as if your buffalo got to go outside.  So, my question is: is this standard practise in Italy to not allow the cows or buffalo outside? Or is outside only permitted for organic producers? Or is it just a matter of space?  Not that the animals seemed miserable, but it certainly struck us as strange.

Hathor, I wasn't on a gastronomy trip per se, but on this trip (as in trips in the past), I've seen lots of buffaloes wandering around in fields. Here's a shot from last week, taken at the Foce del Sele sanctuary of Hera, just north of the main site of Paestum:

They seem pretty happy, and they certainly couldn't have asked for a more beautiful spot to wander around. (The Foce del Sele site isn't exactly what we might call suggestivo: it's mostly ankle-high remains, and while it's important, not least because it's where the beautiful metopes in the Paestum museum came from, the buffaloes sort of stole the show.)

And I absolutely agree about the wonderfulness of ricotta di bufala. It's just astoundingly good stuff.

Edited October 9, 2005 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[albiston]

Andrew, thanks for the gourd/cucumber pic. It certainly looks a lot like the one in my shot. I made the assumption it was something sweet because of the other objects on the plate, which look like fruit and pastry items to me.

Hathor, as far as I could undertsand the idea behind the ice was that during the period in which the ice melts and starts simmering you will be extracting flavor from your main ingredient in a slow and delicate way. That should give you a smoother taste. Does it really makes sense? I don't know, and I'm not even sure I perfectly understood chef Guarino's explanation.

[docsconz]

Just getting back into the swing of things...great topic, Alberto!

My father, of Sicilian heritage, never could eat seafood with cheese either. I have broken away from such compunctions on occassion

How does the ricotta stuffed mozzarella compare with burratta?

[albiston]

Just getting back into the swing of things...great topic, Alberto!

My father, of Sicilian heritage, never could eat seafood with cheese either. I have broken away from such compunctions on occassion 

I can just imagine what your father would have thought . And hanks for the compliments, John, happy you enjoyed the thread.

How does the ricotta stuffed mozzarella compare with burratta?

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The concept is clearly similar, but the result less so. Burrata has that creamy/liquid quality which you won't find inj the ricotta filled mozzarella. There it is more a case of smooth/rich mouthfeeling, with a little of that refreshing sensetion I find ricotta always seems to have.

[Ore]

Wow...Alberto, it seems as if you and your family had a great trip!

I always find these posts so late because of the lack of free time due to WORK (!!!) but I love all the photos!

Ice is often used in making a stock to help clarify and catch the impurities sooner. The fat will gather at the top of the stock pot and be easier to skim at first, yielding an often 'cleaner' stock.

A few weeks ago someone in my house brought home a little cup from Trader Joe's (a market here in the US). Inside, was a DOP Mozzarella di Bufala. It tasted almost like the real thing, but all those I had in Italy were made with RAW milk, this stuff was pasteurized.

The photos of the Buffalo brought that memory back.

Alberto, did you get into the Irpinia region at all?? You probably know where I am going with this...did you stop at La Locanda di Bu??

Ciao,

Ore

[albiston]

Alberto, did you get into the Irpinia region at all??  You probably know where I am going with this...did you stop at La Locanda di Bu??

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Unfortunately we had no time for that. It is definitely on my mind though: I'm curious about both Locanda di Bu and Oasis, and there's so many wine producers I'd like to visit there that I just don't know where to start . Hopefuly next time.

[albiston]

Our last day in Sicily was dedicated mainly to shopping, food and non-food. The hard part about flying by plane when I travel to Italy is having to limit the amount of stuff I can bring back. Somehow there's always just another bottle of wine or cheese that I'd miss at home .

Being Modica famous for its chocolate, which is best described as mexican-style, we could not avoid bringing back home a little collection of differently flavored bars. Both Antica Dolceria Rizza and Bonajuto are good. We really liked the citrus bar from Rizza though Bonajuto's standard bars (cinnamon or vanilla) have a more intense chocolate flavor. Bonajuto also has another advantage: they're arguably the best pastry shop in Modica. The cannoli are simply fantastic (you have to ask for them, because they're made to order) as are the many different almond and carob pastries. What really rocked us though was the 'mpanatigghi, little pockets filled with a mixture of nuts, spices chocolate and beef descending directly from empanadas. These were introduced here by the Spanish religious orders who established monasteries in the city during the times of the Borbón kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The 'mpanatigghi:

After that we it was the turn of a little base nutrients: cheese and wine, the heart of a healthy diet . Smaller Southern Italian cities can have a really depressing choice of wine shops, luckily this is not the case in Modica. Sapori DOC is a small wine shop/bar carrying an impressive collection of Sicilian wines, especially Nero d'Avola bottles. For cheese I followed a tip from the Slow Food website. La Casa del Formaggio is a small shop on Via Tedeschi which I wouldn't have even noticed had I not been looking for it. The cheeses on the other hand are hard to ignore: the owner is an affineur, i.e. he buys the fresh cheeses from selected farmers and ages them himself. There's a huge choice of Caciocavallo Ragusano, from young and unsalted to forms aged well over a year. As it ages Ragusano is first used in cooking, then as table cheese and then grated in everything from pasta dishes to fish.

A slice of 14 month's old ragusano, strong, aromatic and piquant:

Apart from the classics (ragusano, ricotta salata, scamorze, pecorino) the shop sells two particularly interesting local cheeses. Tuma persa is a rare cheese made by leaving molds develop freely on the unsalted cheese. Once the development has reach the desired stage the forms are salted and aged. The result is a semi-hard cheese with a taste between blue veined cheese and aged Taleggio. The other cheese is tumazzu a cow milk's cheese with pepper grain. While peppered pecorini (sheep cheeses) are common in Sicily, this one is made with a very similar method only using milk from cows of the Modicana race.

[albiston]

Noto was our last stop before going home via Catania-Naples (ferry) and Naples-Berlin (bike... just kidding). Although many of the local monuments got damaged in the 1990 earthquake, and reconstruction continues, Noto remains one of the highlights of Sicilian Baroque.

The other reason for visiting Noto was perhaps less profound, but at least more on topic. Noto has two of the most highly prized pastry shops in Sicily, Costanzo and Caffé Sicilia. Costanzo was surprisingly closed for the day, so our hopes of a comparative granita tasting vanished in a puff of smoke. Caffé Sicilia more than made up for the disappointment.

While my wife enjoyed the granita di gelsi (mulberry granita) above - extremely pure and intense mulberry flavor, with just the right balance of fruit acidity and sugar and fantastic texture- I decided to ignore the traditional sweets like cassata and cannoli and have a taste of chef Corrado Assenza's creations. Most are sold as tranci, small single portion cakes, and are based on ricotta and on the jams and infused honey on sale in the shop.

The one I picked, flavored with white pepper and bergamot and topped with a candied apricot, was fantastic. Rich texture and yet absolutely not heavy or tiresome and the flavors dosed with a perfect hand, clear but not overpowering at all (a risk, especially with bergamot IMO). After we had our sightseeing tour I convinced my wife to go back to caffé sicilia and try out another few of chef Assenza's tranci. All very good but the absolute winner was the one with saffron and bitter oranges. If you pass from Noto this is an absolute must.

Edited October 14, 2005 by albiston (log)

[Kevin72]

What really rocked us though was the 'mpanatigghi, little pockets filled with a mixture of nuts, spices chocolate and beef descending directly from empanadas. These were introduced here by the Spanish religious orders who established monasteries in the city during the times of the Borbón kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The 'mpanatigghi:

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It even has powdered sugar on it . . . it sounds so weird at first of course, but knowing Sicily I'm sure it worked to a mind-blowing degree.

Great writeup, great photos, great job. And you artfully strung it along to keep us in suspense!

[Adam Balic]

Cool. In Britain they are called 'Minced Pies', although most of the meat content is not included now. I had no idea that any other culture had retained these. Mostly beef tongue or veal was used, but beef was also common.

"To equal proportions of roast-beef:, raisins, currants, suet, candied citron, orange, lemon, spices and sugar, add a proportionate weight of stewed pears and preserved ginger, the grated rind of three dozen oranges and lemons, and also their juice, one bottle of old rum, one bottle of brandy, and two of old port."

God that mulberry granita looks wonderful. My grandparents had a tree and I ate my self sick on them during the summers. I wish I had a bowl of them now.

[docsconz]

Thanks for even more great memories, Alberto. Your photos and description from Bonajuto in particular brought back some great ones. I tried the "meat pies" when i was there. They were indeed excellent. I wish I knew to try the cannoli though. That was my particular mission at the time, to have as many cannoli in Sicily as possible. They are excellent in NYC, but even better there.

I was at Caffe Sicilia in Noto as well. Unfortunately, I didn't have what you did, although what I had was pretty good too!

[albiston]

Cool. In Britain they are called 'Minced Pies', although most of the meat content is not included now. I had no idea that any other culture had retained these. Mostly beef tongue or veal was used, but beef was also common.

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I had missed the connection with minced pies, so used to considering them a mix of fruit, spices and nuts, that I hadn't thought about them at all. There's quite a bit of meat in these though. I have a recipe from Bonajuto published on a Slow Food book (which I clearly cannot copy here for copyright reasons) which calls for 500 grams of beef tenderloin for every 2.5 kg of stuffing. According to one story we heard in Modica the 'mpanatigghi were one of the tricks used by nuns to get around the prohibition to consume meat during Lent. Once mixed with enough spices and chocolate nobody would notice the nuns were eating meat. I have some doubts on its veridicality, but I like the story anyway.

I wonder, is the origin of the word sweetmeats connected to the same concept?

Great writeup, great photos, great job.  And you artfully strung it along to keep us in suspense! 

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Thanks, but I'd be lying if I said I planned it all along .

Thanks for even more great memories, Alberto. Your photos and description from Bonajuto in particular brought back some great ones. I tried the "meat pies" when i was there. They were indeed excellent. I wish I knew to try the cannoli though. That was my particular mission at the time, to have as many cannoli in Sicily as possible. They are excellent in NYC, but even better there.

John, I would have not ordered cannoli at Bonajuto's had I not been tipped of from Katia and Ronald of loveSicily.com after our meal at Il Duomo. I was praising Sultano's mini-cannolo and in reply I was told that to taste a really good cannolo I should try Bonajuto's. The next day I just had to make that my fist stop, though I feared at first I had been fooled. Looking at the price list above the register I could see no sign of cannoli. I asked anyway and the lady serving just gave me a knowing smile and had one made at the moment from one of the pastry cooks. I would have loved to ask why they keep so secret about their cannoli, but I was too busy enjoying the best cannolo of my trip .

[Adam Balic]

Cool. In Britain they are called 'Minced Pies', although most of the meat content is not included now. I had no idea that any other culture had retained these. Mostly beef tongue or veal was used, but beef was also common.

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I had missed the connection with minced pies, so used to considering them a mix of fruit, spices and nuts, that I hadn't thought about them at all. There's quite a bit of meat in these though. I have a recipe from Bonajuto published on a Slow Food book (which I clearly cannot copy here for copyright reasons) which calls for 500 grams of beef tenderloin for every 2.5 kg of stuffing. According to one story we heard in Modica the 'mpanatigghi were one of the tricks used by nuns to get around the prohibition to consume meat during Lent. Once mixed with enough spices and chocolate nobody would notice the nuns were eating meat. I have some doubts on its veridicality, but I like the story anyway.

I wonder, is the origin of the word sweetmeats connected to the same concept?

British mince pies typically had a very high meat content (40-60% although this varied from recipe to recipe.

From Gervase Markham The English Housewife, (London: 1615)

Take a Legge of Mutton, and cut the best of the flesh from the bone, and parboyl it well then put to it three pound of the best Mutton suet & shred it very small; then spread it abroad, and fashion it with Salt Cloves and Mace: then put in good store of Currants, great Raisins and Prunes clean washed and picked a few Dates sliced, and some Orenge-pils sliced ; then being all well mixt together, put it into a coffin, or into divers coffins, and so bake them

and when they are served up, open the lids and strow store of Sugar on the top of the meat and upon the lid. And in this sort you may also bake Beef or Veal, onely the Beef would not be parboyld, and the Veal will ask a double quantity of Suet.

As for "meat" in "sweetmeat". I think that this is using the now defunct meaning of meat (= solid food, rather then liquid food). Hence nut-meat, white-meat (cheese) etc.

I have the Slow Food trattoria book, is the recipe in this as I would be interested in gettting a copy :hint:.

[ruggele]

How would you spend your 17 days in southern Italy........you will be helping 3 people plan a memorable journey........thanks for your thoughts.........Carol

[athinaeos]

Lucky You!

I would recommend to include 5 days in Campania with the following highlights in your itinerary:

Pompei, Ercolano, Amalfi Coast, Paestum, Naples (Archaelogical Museum, Capodimonte Gallery, as many Churches as you can afford to visit).

Be very careful if you drive there, it is a bit tricky.

A good strategy would be to stay in Naples and use public transport to visit all these places. Even if you have a car, park it and leave it in the garage. The only place I would drive to is Paestum, especially if this is at the end of your Naples stay and you are heading south.

As for eating places, I have posted reviews for "Torre del Saracino" and three other restaurants in the forum.

Have a great time.

[StevenC]

How would you spend your 17 days in southern Italy........you will be helping 3 people plan a memorable journey........thanks for your thoughts.........Carol

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Wow, what a fun challenge!

Just a few quick notes...

Park the car somewhere well outside the city and spend at least two days in Naples itself. Some people might try to dissuade you from visiting Naples, but it's one of my favorite cities in Italy for its food and the exuberance of its street life.

As recommended, spend at least three more days in the area to the immediate south of Naples: visit Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Amalfi coast, and Paestum. Apart from your time in Naples, it's probably easiest to base yourself somewhere on the Amalfi coast if you have a car.

Moving inland, you can drive southeast of Naples to Matera. (While I haven't done the drive myself, I've plotted it out, and it seemed reasonable.) Matera is an absolute must-see. It hasn't quite made the tour-bus list yet, but it is unlike any place you will ever visit. Before you go, try to read Carlo Levi's Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped in Eboli), the account of his exile near Matera during the Fascist period.

From Matera, it's a fairly easy trip over to Puglia, with its phenomenal food and fascinating sights. Places to visit include:

- Lecce

- Martina Franca

- Alberobello (go to see the trulli, but unfortunately the town seems to have sold its soul to mass-market tourism)

- the old quarter of Bari, the second big city of southern Italy

- Altamura (for the bread)

Be sure to drink the Negroamaro and Primitivo in southern Puglia.

You might also explore Calabria (esp. Crotone), but you'd be pushing the 17-day timeframe.

Assuming the 17 days don't include the 5 you'll be spending in Rome--damn, I'm jealous!--here's what I'd suggest for a timeframe:

3 days in Naples, including drive down from Rome on the first day

3 days for Pompeii, Amalfi coast and Paestum

3 days in Matera, including travel time from Campania

3 days in Martina Franca and Alberobello, including drive in from Matera and a stop in Altamura on the first day

3 days in Lecce and the Salento peninsula

1 day in Bari

1 day to drive from Bari back to Rome.

Of course, you could spend the 17 days just in Lazio... Have fun!

Edited June 27, 2006 by StevenC (log)