Green Holidays

We have just come back from a lovely holiday in Italy which we booked at the last minute. We have driven to Italy once or twice a year for the last three years, not so easy if you live in the UK, but from Switzerland it is a days driving. We usually stay on an Agriturismo, a farm which either rents out holiday apartments or has rooms on a B&B basis. Some farms also have an on site restaurant or have other activities that you can do, such as horse riding, or tours around the farm. It is a great way of supporting smaller farmers and can be very informative and interesting whether you have children or not. The farmers have always been very welcoming and interested in us too, so perfect for practising our Italian. And there are usually wonderful products to buy to take back home with you.

This time we stayed in an apartment on Agriturismo Fiametta near Rimini in Emilia Romagna. They are an organic farm producing 6 different wines as well as olive oil and a liqueur made from nuts which is particularly delicious. They have a new swimming pool, but unfortunately it was too cold to be open. The farm buildings are perched on the ridge of a hill so there are fantastic views over the countryside and out to sea on one side, and to the vineyards and rolling hills on the other. There was a big garden area with a little castle and slide for the children to play in which they enjoyed. The only down side was that the house was right by the side of the road, which although small, could be quite noisy with Italian drivers zooming along every now and then. However the shutters did shut out much of this at night, and we weren't in the house much during the day, and the gardens were well enclosed by a wall and robust gates so we didn't need to worry about the children running into the road.

We found some wonderful caves at Onferno about 20 mins drive away. They do guided tours through the caves which are home to 6 different species of bats. The children had great fun and loved wearing the hard hats and we saw 2 species of bats in the caves.
We also visited Montefiore Conca, San Leo (village pictured left), Gradara and San Marino (pictured above) with their wonderful castles, as well as Rimini, which must be teaming in Summer, and Urbino a beautiful walled town.
We also found a brand new organic Gelateria (ice cream parlour) which opened in Marciano on our last day there. Probably just as well or we would have spent far too much time in it!

If you are interested in an organic farm holiday in Italy then Bioagriturismi.it is the place to start looking.