So, today was our cooking class day. We debated just how we were going to get there, with some of us wanting to avoid all those steps! We ended up taking them anyway and in record time. Stopped for a coffee before going to Covo dei Saraceni, a beautiful hotel right at the beach, for our cooking class.

Paolo, the conceirge, met us and brought us back to the kitchen after giving us our complimentary aprons, copies of the recipes, and certificates of completion (which might have been a bit premature). Our chef was Lorenzo, a young guy with not so great English so Paolo was our host and our interpretor.

We started out making eggplant parmigiana. Skinning the eggplant seemed to cause concern for Paolo and Lorenzo so we were limited on using the big chef knife. The approach was totally different from how we had learned to do it in Sienna, 10+ years ago. We took thinly sliced and lightly fried eggplant and layered them in indvidual cups making a sort of flower in the cup. Then we put in cubed, fried eggplant mixed with mozzarella, tomato sauce and fresh basil, folded the eggplant 'petals' over it to seal it up, then baked it in the oven.

We then moved on to making fresh ravioli filled with a type of ricotta cheese mixed with marjoram. The pasta making is always fun and surprising how much it makes. We now need an electric pasta maker because that is a lot easier than doing the hand cranking method we had been using.

Lastly, we made chocolate almond cake. Well, we really didn't make it, a pastry chef named Giovanni made it while we watched.

Then we sat down at a lovely table on the terrace by the sea and 'people-watched' while we drank wine and devoured the fruits of our labor, or mostly the labor of Lorenzo and Giovanni. YUM!

After that, we did a little shopping in the boutiques and ceramic stores before hiking back to home. The only reason we hiked back is because we were trying to find a restaurant recommended by a friend called C'era Una Volta which was a short distance from our apartment. That was our most difficult trek; long and hot! - see the picture of us crawling up the stairs! We stopped often to ostensibly take pictures of beautiful flowering pots. But really just to get our breath!

After recovering, we played cards and had a light snack of mozzarella, provolone, fresh tomatoes with herbed olive oil before taking the shuttle to the restaurant. We took the shuttle home after having a fabulous dinner at C'era Una Volta (means "Once Upon a Time"), which was also our cheapest dinner so far.

Before the night ended, we admired the still almost full moon then headed to bed for Sogni d'oro (sweet dreams). Going to Rome in the morning!