Buongiorno amici,
Buon natale! I hope you are enjoying this festive period and are able to spend time with those you love, slowing down and eating delicious things. If you’re curious to see how our festive celebrations were here in Piedmont, I’ll tell you more about it at the end of this email.
In my last newsletter, I hinted that I had more exciting announcements to reveal, so here’s another one! In collaboration with Untold Italy, we are launching two spectacular tours in Summer 2022 in incredible Puglia.
Untold Italy Puglia Tours in 2022
June 3 – 9 and September 16 – 20
This southern Italian region is a land of brilliant blue skies, red earth, and olive trees as far as the eye can see, where striking traditional stone huts known as trulli dot the horizon. It is one of my favourite regions in Italy thanks to its unique culture, architecture, crafts, and, of course, culinary delights.
We’ll start our tour together in the Valle D’Itria region – home of the trulli and pretty white-washed villages. We visit the seaside towns of the Adriatic Coast where turquoise sea contrasts with rocky cliffs and venture further south to baroque beauty Lecce. Exploring the cave town Matera (which is actually in Basilicata) is a must (and of course we stay overnight in a luxurious cave hotel) before heading to the vibrant Pugliese capital Bari to end on a gastronomic high. We will of course be accompanied by local guides who will help to bring Puglia to life for us.
You’ll enjoy shopping for local ceramics in Grottaglie and perhaps go for a swim in stunning Polignano a Mare with plenty of time to relax at our masseria (country house hotel). Of course, exploring Pugliese cuisine and wine is a highlight of our trip and we have picked out only the best places to try it. You’ll get to know the olive oil and cheeses of the region through guided tastings and learn how to make traditional pasta.
We’ve chosen early June and late September to make the most of the enchanting sunrises and sunsets against the stunning backdrop of the landscapes of Puglia. I would be thrilled if you choose to join us and promise it will be full of fun, unforgettable moments, and of course great food & wine. If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting Puglia, this is for you (especially if you want to get off the beaten track, or don’t want to hire a car here!) Solo travellers are of course welcome too.
I first visited a few years ago and returned again last year where I really fell head over heels for beautiful Puglia! My partner’s mum grew up as a young teenager in Bari for a few years and still has family here, so it was a delight to get a more local taste of the region this time around. So much so that it really inspired me to create this bespoke itinerary with Untold Italy full to the brim with local flavours and unforgettable memories.
Come to Regal Piedmont with me
In case you missed my first exciting announcement, we are also running Untold Italy tours in my home region of Piedmont.
We've made both the Piedmont and Puglia tours long enough so you can get a true taste of each region and short enough so you can combine them with classic destinations like Rome and Florence in a two-week Italian itinerary. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any queries- Katy from Untold Italy is also running virtual web conferences you can book with her if you prefer an ‘in-person’ chat.
Our Piemontese Christmas
Natale (or Christmas) was a bit different once again for most of us. It was my second year celebrating in Piedmont with my partner’s family and we didn’t escape the COVID dramas either in the lead-up to the big day. That meant our Christmas was really small this year with just my partner’s parents, but it was nonetheless full of laughs, cheer and of course good food and wine.
In Italy, we celebrate Christmas Eve or the ‘vigilia’ and traditionally fish is on the menu. We enjoyed oysters to start (the Australian in me insisted!), followed by spaghetti con vongole (clams), a delicious festive salad and panettone to finish.
Christmas Day was held at my house and my partner and I were up early to make pasta. One of the traditional pasta in Piemonte is ‘agnolotti al plin’ and Christmas Day in Piedmont wouldn’t really be complete without a bowl. The day before I made our filling- delicious tender veal cooked in red white and combined with wilted spinach, parmesan, and eggs to bring it together. You can fill your agnolotti with whatever leftover roast meat or greens you have in the fridge if you’d like to try making your own one day too. The important thing is to finely mince everything together in a food processor. The pasta is made only with egg yolks and very rich and then shaped into a little parcel by pinching the dough together (plin means pinch in dialect). Perhaps the best part is that the sauce is the reduced roast meat enriched with a dollop of butter and some sage leaves. Buonissimo!
Besides pasta we enjoyed fassona or pheasant for our secondi. It was absolutely delicious- stuffed with chestnuts and wrapped in prosciutto. We slow cooked it for almost two hours in chicken broth and white wine on the stove and it was tender and moist.
And of course for dessert we finished with La Nuvola pandoro. You can read more about it in my blog post here or have a listen to the latest Untold Italy podcast all about Christmas food traditions in Italy.
Untold Italy Amici
If you’ve listened to the Untold Italy podcast in the past, want advice for travelling to Italy or just want to be transported here every week, I invite you to consider joining the Untold Italy Amici group.
It’s a monthly members-only podcast where Italy travel experts will share their top secrets for exploring the country. Think secret experiences, restaurants, food, towns, festivals and more that you can’t find easily on the internet and ones they don’t normally reveal.
This month Corinna Cooke (author of the Glam Italia series) shared her top secrets including a little Tuscan town off the beaten track with a mysteriously abandoned palazzo, a ceramics tradition dating back to the 15th century and a local gardener who decorates the town with beautiful flower pots!
I’m taking a little break from my city live tours on Instagram, but rest assured we’ll kick those off again in January and have some fantastic tours lined up to keep you dreaming of this beautiful country. Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for updates on who is next, as well as one or two more exciting announcements for 2022!
If you know any like-minded Italy lovers, I would be so thrilled if you share my newsletter with them. I hope you have a restful end to what has been another unpredictable year. Here’s to a brighter 2022 and one where I hope you can get to Italy too!
Liv x