Agritourism in Mantova, Italy

 A Slumber Party with Sleeping Beauty

I arrived, filthy and sun-beaten, at my destination, though I wasn’t altogether sure that I was in the right place. I appeared to be on a ranch. The gate was open, and the silt path led only to a large, empty-looking barn conversion that backed onto a jigsaw of mismatched fields. A faint smell of manure hung in the air. Only a few steps away was the start of an eerie agricultural graveyard. Chickens wandered through the minefield of motionless, rusting tractors and ploughs, clucking uncertainly. The temperature was beginning to drop as the day slipped away. Suddenly, a rustling behind me cut through the ambient noise like a knife. I turned slowly. Two soulless, black eyes bored into me.

Reception at an agricultural campground in Mantova, Italy

My mind was playing tricks on me; my gaze met only by the apathetic stare of a goat. As I re-composed myself, a wiry man with leathery skin and a contagious smile, emerged from the trees and beckoned me towards his best piece of turf. Me and my tent would be happy here. Gratefully, I shook Stephano’s hand, noticing his firm grip and calloused palms. This was my first acquaintance with Italian Agritourism (Agriturismo), and would be nothing like I had expected.

Lying in the shadows of the giants of the Italian tourist board, Mantova is hemmed in by Milan to the West, Lake Garda to the North and Venice to the East. Although the town is famed for being the site of Romeo’s exile in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and for being the old home of the Gonzaga family, locals affectionately refer to the town as La Bella Addormentata (“the sleeping beauty”). Nestled among three slumbering lakes and resting comfortably on the green bed of the Po plain, it is easy to see how Mantova earned its nick name. But truth be told, La Bella Addormentata is not disturbed nearly as often as she ought to be.

An hour later, I was invited inside, out of the cold. The wife of the Stephano, Laura, was a rotund lady, and full of cheer. Her two children raced around, attempting to catch each other amidst fits of laughter around the large, heavy wooden table residing in the centre of the spacious dining hall. The scent of roast pork fluctuated as Stephano and four bearded men entered the building. The four men, like princes with their noble steeds, had ridden horses all the way from Lake Garda. Removing their wide-brimmed hats, and hanging them from the corners of their chairs, the cowboys began to tell me about their journey.

The eastern road into Mantova, Italy

Acquaintances behind us, Stephano uncased his guitar and began an impromptu sing-song with his daughters, before moving onto classics like 'Yesterday' for my benefit. In an effort to absorb as much of the experience as I could, I agreed to hear a song about a beautiful woman from the South of Italy. Stephano would sing one line of the song, before translating it into broken English for me, much to the amusement of the Italian cowboys. The song proceeded like this:

“I went to a pub after a sunny day”
“And spotted a pretty girl called Pepper across the room”
“So I asked her for dance with me”
“But she smelled very badly and I asked her why”
“She told me she had been sick”
“And I said I couldn't bear it”
“I sat down and left her sad” (the melody began to fade out ominously here)
“And wished on her a thousand cancers”

I slowly scraped my jaw off the floor. “A thousand cancers?”, I inquired, sure that a deeper message had been lost in translation. “Of course!”, he confirmed, a cheeky glint in his eye as he slid me a coffee with a shot of homemade alcohol. “Made from apples!”, he chirped happily. That did not stop the drink being so alcoholic that any spillage might have seriously challenged the integrity of the wooden table.
I waved my goodbyes yelling “Gratzie” as I wheeled out of the farm the following morning. My experiences of both Mantova, and Italian Agriturismo had proven wonderfully unexpected. Agritourism is a cheap, ecologically responsible and creative way to see many places of real natural beauty and is becoming increasingly popular. On this evidence, you certainly do not get what you pay for; you get much, much more. If travelling to North Italy, be prepared to exchange the hotel for a farm, and swing by to give La Bella Addormentata a prod. You might just be surprised when she wakes up.