Portofino and a Ligurian Cooking Demonstration

This certainly was a food-themed cruise for us! Once again we were on an excursion that highlighted the cuisine of the area we were in. This time it was Liguria in the north of Italy. Our port stop was the tiny village of Portofino, less than 100 km away from the famed Cinque Terre and just as picturesque. 

But precisely because Portofino is a tiny village was why, almost as soon as we stepped off the tenders at the pier, we boarded a local ferry and headed to Santa Margherita Ligure (one of several Santa Margheritas in Italy, and not the one that produces the wine of the same name). Full sized tour buses would not get into Portofino, so we had to meet them in the somewhat larger town.

After a brief introduction to the town and a visit to its magnificently decorated church, we had a little free time (which seemed to be the case multiple times in every single tour all trip) to wander around before meeting the bus to go to Recco, the town where we had the cooking demonstration and lunch.

Santa Maria di Antiochia Church. For a tiny
town, this church packs quite a punch!

Another theme for this cruise could have been - balconies!
Everywhere we went there have been interesting and
ornate balconies and terraces decorated with
beautiful flowers and plants.

The area is quite spectacular, with cliffs and mountains rising from the sea, almost rivalling the Amalfi Coast. Here are a few photos from the drive between Santa Margherita Ligure and Recco:

Our cooking demonstration and lunch were held at the Ristorante Vitturin 1860, which dates back to that year and is the oldest restaurant in Recco. We don't know if has been the same family owning it since then, but the current owner and his son both run the restaurant now.

During the demonstration we learned how to make, and tasted, a wonderful fresh Pesto and a Walnut Sauce for pasta. Both of those will be coming out of our kitchen sometime soon! We were also shown how to make and shape Trofie, a tiny pasta made with a dough of only flour, water and salt, and how to fill and shape Pansotti, which look similar to tortellini but have a hole in the centre.

But the star of the show, and the main reason we came to Recco for the lunch, was the Focaccia di Recco col formaggio, which is made with stracchino cheese and is appellation controlled.  Like champagne can only come from the Champagne region, the only place that can use this name is Recco, although other towns can make a similar product. Unlike the focaccia we get here, this dough has no yeast and is rolled very thin, like pizza - but DON'T ever call it pizza! There are 2 layers of dough with the cheese dotted in between in clumps. This would be very hard to make at home because it calls for pizza oven temperatures of 300 deg C, almost 600 deg F. Maybe we'll try it in the barbecue!

The chef making Pesto, with our
tour guide doing the translation

The restaurant's owner making the
dough for the Trofie

Everyone trying to form the
Pansotti, with a filling of greens,
ricotta and parmesan cheeses.

The hard part - trying to roll the
Trofie. That seems to be a skill
that takes some time to master.

Filling the focaccia with the stracchino cheese.
It is a very young cow's milk cheese
 that has a bit of a grainy texture.

And now: Lunch!

The finished Focaccia di Recco col formaggio. This
huge thin bread can safely feed four if there's no main
course afterwards. In fact, a family of 3 (Dad, Mom and
young son) at another table ordered one just for them
and finished the whole thing!

Our pastas and sauces: on the left, the Trofie with diced potato,
green beans and the Pesto, a typical recipe; and on the right the
Pansotti with the Walnut Sauce. Absolutely delectable!

And for dessert, another version of the focaccia, this time with
Nutella in the middle and chocolate on top. Yummy!!

 After lunch, which didn't look like a lot in the pictures and on the plates, but was quite filling, we set off, back to Santa Margherita Ligure and, lo and behold, a little more free time. The weather hadn't changed much, still sunny and hot and sticky, and we also had nothing we wanted to do, so we found a bench in the shade by the seaside and watched the world go by. As all the tours finally came back, we boarded the ferry for the return to Portofino.

The small boat harbour

The Castello Brown, a 16th Century fortress

Boats, yachts and ships of all sizes sail the waters in the area.

Again, more spectacular scenery. The whole north coast of the Mediterranean is truly awesome, and because it is the cradle of Western civilization, with huge Eastern influences, it is all filled with history that is being uncovered more and more almost every time someone sticks a shovel in the ground. Our only issue has been that, because of the jam-packed itinerary, it has been very difficult to absorb a lot of what we've been seeing. In some respects, it's a good thing we do the blog so we can go back ourselves to see what we did; otherwise there would be a lot we wouldn't remember.

Tomorrow will be our last long day of touring, but we will see Florence and Pisa, so it will be worth the 10 hours!

France - Provence and Monte Carlo (sort of)

Our tour from Marseille took us first into the country, to Chateau Val Joanis, for a visit to the acclaimed gardens and lunch, and then to the town of Aix-en-Provence.

Sunflower fields. The lavender is already finished for
the year - too bad.

Chateau Val Joanis now is home to a winery as well as the gardens. The land was the original home of Jean de Joanis, who was secretary to King Louis III of Naples in the early 1400s. From the mid 1700s to 1910 it sat in disrepair until it was purchased and refurbished by the Arnaud family. That family died off and the chateau was bought by the Chancel family in 1977, and they started the vineyard and winery. It was Camille Chancel who established the gardens, which have been on the register of Remarkable Gardens in France for over 10 years. The Chateau is now owned by a Dutch family who plan to make the old bastide, or gated house, into a boutique hotel once it is renovated.

A small plot planted in the traditional Provencal fashion,
not trimmed or set in rows. This isn't done in the fields
as they use a large mechanized harvester.

The gardens. French gardens don't have a lot of flowers, more hedges
and trees, and most are designed by garden architects.

After a delicious lunch of slow roasted chicken that included vegetables from the garden, we headed off to Aix-en-Provence. The town is larger than we expected, and with the tourist season in high gear, it was also quite busy. The old town centre seemed plastered with shops, stalls and umbrellas so it wasn't really all that easy to walk around. Not to mention that they seem to love motorcycles over there, and they aren't restricted like cars, so we spent some time keeping out of their way as well.

The next day in Monte Carlo we turned into an 'in port sea day'. We had been to Monte Carlo before and, although some of our fellow passengers had said a trip to Eze and some of the other towns nearby to see 'how the other half lives' would be a nice day, we needed the break. Obviously, even that break wasn't enough as we are writing these blog posts from home at the end of the trip! We did, however, take some photos of the yachts and of Monte Carlo.

We also had taken some photos of our Oceania Suite when we boarded, so we thought we'd include them here. Now, just because we didn't go anywhere didn't mean we did nothing. After breakfast at Waves Grill on the pool deck, we did our 2 mile walk on the jogging track, spent 45 minutes in the gym, and then hit the pool for half an hour. So we felt we deserved an afternoon of not doing too much. We did, however, work on the blog.

Looking in from the entrance.

The Media Room - TV with Blu-ray player, huge selection
of music and a video game console.

Bedroom with sliding door to the Jacuzzi on the balcony.

This bathroom was huge!

The balcony. A very comfortable spot both
during the day in port and at sea.

Dining area and wet bar. We did have breakfast en suite one
morning and it was nice to have all the room.

We deserved to relax a bit after the tours and our morning of
exercise.

We haven't mentioned the specialty restaurants on the ship yet. There are four of them, providing a real variety at a level of quality and service that is every bit as good as our experience with Crystal. We were given two reservations in each one, and our butler suggested that we book them on the first day and make alterations later if we needed them, since it would be almost impossible to make reservations later on. The restaurants were: Toscana, obviously Italian; the Polo Grill, a steakhouse; Red Ginger, Asian; and Jacques, the French Bistro that features dishes of Jacques Pepin, who is the Culinary Master for the line.

 

Monte Carlo - it seems that all they do is build one
apartment tower after another here. Where do they
find all the people to buy them?

A few of the private yachts around the
harbour.

Larry working on the blog

So we hoped we would be ready for the next two days of long tours in Italy, and an early morning on Sunday for the flight home.