Pizza!

 After our tour of Naples...We also had Master Chef teach the group how to make Napolitano Pizza to end the day.

Federico was our Master Chef!  

Our lovely tour guide through Naples.  She spoke many languages and was very knowledgeable.  

Touring Naples!

October 1st a walking tour of Naples. Talking about getting your steps in is an understatement.  

So much history to take in. 

The history of Naples, Italy, stretches back over 2,500 years, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban environments in the entire world. Founded by ancient Greek settlers in the first millennium BCE, the city evolved from an important maritime trading hub of Magna Graecia into a favored, elegant retreat for the Roman elite. Throughout its long history, Naples has uniquely preserved its ancient past by literally stacking new eras of architecture, culture, and infrastructure directly on top of its ancient foundations.

🌋 A City Built in Layers

What makes ancient Naples truly spectacular is its physical stratification. Because space was limited by the surrounding volcanic landscape—nestled between Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields—the city grew by recycling itself.

Instead of tearing old structures down, generations built directly on top of older Greek and Roman foundations. To solve practical space problems, the Romans dug underground. They carved a massive 450-kilometer network of tunnels, aqueducts, and cisterns deep into the tufo (a soft, yellow volcanic ash rock). These underground networks were later repurposed as early Christian catacombs, storage, and even air-raid shelters during World War II.

Here are some photos of our day.  

Finishing our day at the Royal Palace.

 The royal palace of Casserta.  Many different periods and beautiful architecture.  

Bufalo Farm Tour and Lunch.

 SEPTEMBER 30TH- Oh my what an amazing Day! Our adventure started th

is morning on our journey to Pastorano(Caserta) Italy.

So many of you who are following along have enjoyed Bufala Mozzarella in the restaurant, well today we experienced first hand, where it comes from and how it is made. '

This is a DOP product..oh my where to start. The owner Manuela was so full of information about the process and the region. I did try to video some of it but may save it after I get home. Some of the highlights were the master cheese maker stayed overtime to show us how to make the mozzarella. They start their day at midnight.

MANUELA had Anthony come up and put in the whey from the night before and then the organic renat to start to make the cheese

Here you see Manuela showing us the curd

Stretching the cheese. If the cheese is not exactly the way they need it to be then it is turned into provolone so their is no wasteSo the process to making the Bufala Mozzarella is similar to making sourdough bread. Once it is set up the master cheese maker makes the sign of the cross on the starter before mixing it up to make the curds . 

Then the master cheese maker took us outside to show the next steps

Now we try to make the mozzarella

Above are the water Bufala they were in their pool and in the background the organic field of food for the bufala is alfalfa and the corn but they do not shuck corn it is the whole corn dried and grounded. For every herd their are two males, and they rotate the herds in the pools. This Bufala farm was the first in the world to do artificial insemination.

Now it was time for lunch!   How lucky are we to enjoy all the lovely products right here!  

Day 2 Dinner after a very full day!

Our dinner after touring Pompeii was another feast and such a culinary delight.   Enjoy the photos, and look for some of these coming to our menu!  

It is now time for us to retire.  Bouna notte!  

The Ancient city of Pompeii

 POMPEI WAS OUR NEXT ADVENTURE: HERE IS A SMALL HISTORY ALONG WITH A FEW PHOTOS

Mount Vesuvius did not form overnight, of course. Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc that stretches along the convergence of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates on the Italian peninsula—it been erupting for thousands of years.

Sometime around 1995 B.C., for example, an unusually violent eruption (known today as the “Avellino eruption”) shot millions of tons of superheated lava, ash and rocks about 22 miles into the sky. That Bronze Age catastrophe destroyed almost every village, house and farm within 15 miles of the mountain.

Villagers around the volcano had long learned to live with their volatile neighbor. Even after a massive earthquake struck the Campania region in 63 A.D.—a quake that, scientists now understand, offered a warning rumble of the disaster to come—people still flocked to the shores of the Bay of Naples, and Pompeii grew more crowded every year.

The exact date of the eruption remains a matter of debate. August 24, A.D. 79, is the traditional date derived from manuscripts of Pliny the Younger’s account, but archaeological evidence has led some scholars to argue that Vesuvius erupted later that year, possibly in October. It started when a number of small earthquakes rocked the Pompeii region. The people there shrugged off the temblors since they “were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania,” according to Pliny the Younger.Then, shortly after noon on that fateful day, Mount Vesuvius erupted again. The blast sent a plume of ash, rock and scorching-hot volcanic gases so high into the sky that people could see it for hundreds of miles around.

Pliny the Younger, who watched the eruption from across the Bay of Naples, compared this “cloud of unusual size and appearance” to a pine tree that “rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches.” (Today, geologists refer to this type of volcanic blast as a “Plinean eruption.”)

As it cooled, this tower of debris drifted to earth: first the fine-grained ash, then the lightweight chunks of pumice and other rocks. It was terrifying—“I believed I was perishing with the world,” Pliny wrote, “and the world with me”—but it was not yet lethal: Most Pompeiians had plenty of time to flee, and many did.

For those who stayed behind in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns, conditions soon grew much worse. As more and more ash fell, it clogged the air, making it difficult to breathe. Buildings collapsed under overloaded roofs, but still some people remained in the city, now covered under several feet of ash.

Then, on the morning of the following day, a “pyroclastic flow”—a 100-miles-per-hour blast of superheated gas and pulverized rock—poured down the side of the mountain and vaporized everything and everyone in its path.

By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end on the second day of the eruption, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash.

Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was virtually nothing left to find. Pompeii, along with the neighboring town of Herculaneum and a number of villas in the area, was abandoned for centuries.

About 2,000 Pompeiians died in the city, but the eruption in total killed up to 16,000 people in Pompeii, Herculaneum and other towns and villages in the region.

Bodies of men, women, children and animals were frozen right where they’d fallen—many of the bodies uncovered later were still clutching valuable household objects they’d hoped to carry safely out of the city. Some bodies were found with their arms poignantly wrapped around children or other loved ones.

Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread. Most of the city’s buildings were intact, and everyday objects and household goods still littered the streets.