The Amalfi Coast is a UNESCO World Heritage site recognized for its contribution to Mediterranean culture. That includes the lemon experience, “heroic” vineyards and olive groves and the world’s oldest pasta. If you’re looking for a vacation with fabulous scenery, lovely historic sites, and tours of terraced lemon and olive groves along with vineyards and unforgettable cuisine, GetAway Travel stands ready to help.

The lemon experience

 Lemons from the Amalfi Coast are distinctly different from those hard, waxy fruits you pick up at the grocery store. Amalfi lemons are knobby, football-shaped juice-packed wonders of nature. Fragrant with a balanced acidity that doesn’t evoke the lemon-sucked pucker, some are so sweet they can be eaten like apples. They can be purchased at street vendors cut up, sprinkled with a little salt, lightly drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with mint.

Their leaves are wrapped around vegetables and limoncello cheese is famous around the world. Traveling along the coast you can buy cookies iced with lemon frosting at street stands as well as granita di Limone which is sort of like a lemon slushy.

The Aceto Family is your host when you take the Lemon Experience tour in Amalfi. They have been growing lemons for six generations. Learn the art of terraced farming, also called “heroic” farming because the rocky, steep terraces don’t lend themselves to mechanical equipment. It takes heroic human effort to cultivate and harvest the lemons as well as olives and grapes at other farms on the coast. The produce is loaded into crates which are then brought out on the shoulders of employees and family members.

The Museum of Arts showcases the tools of the trade for lemon growing. There is equipment and documents that show the evolution of terrace farming. Take a cooking class and learn how to make the classic lemon tort or lemon jam. At the end of your tour or class, try the limoncello and its variations. Buy and take lemons with you, or ship them. And, for heavens sake, don’t skip the classic delizia al limone even if you are counting calories. It’s a lemon delight of sponge cake filled with lemon cream, brushed with limoncello and topped with lemon-based whipped cream.

Olives and wine

 Get your olive fix at Sorrento Farm. Olive grove tours are conducted under the olive trees, very fitting, and you get the history and an idea of the tradition and farming techniques. See tools from the process, everything from pruning to pressing, and finally the end product.

Sample a variety of olive oils, the farm produces 20 or so, flavored with oranges, truffles, chillies and, of course, lemon.

Small-scale wineries are scattered throughout the coast. The indigenous grapes have a unique flavor due to the sea breeze, volcanic soil and heat of the sun.

Le Vigne di Riato is a lemon grove and vineyard directly above Vietri sul Mare. You can take a tour there or at Cantine Apicella or Ettore Sammarco near Ravello. Marisa Cuomo Winery is the best known winery in the area. Run by women, their wines celebrate the grapes of the region. Tenure San Francesco features wines from recipes that are 100 years old. Guiseppe Apicella is an organic boutique winery that only produces about 19 bottles of wine a year. It is in Tramonti.

You can taste a wide variety of coastal wines at the Le Tre Sorelle Wine Room in Positano. Ask for a flight or try one of the more than 40 wines sold by the glass.

Pasta, seafood and marvelous cuisine

 One of the oldest pastas in the world, ndunderi, a ricotta and pecorino cheese gnocchi, UNESCO recognizes it as a pasta created during Roman times. Minori lays claim to being the birthplace of the pasta, but there are fabulous dishes throughout the region.

Scialatielli ai frutti di mare is a pasta dish packed with seafood including redfish, blue fish, shrimp, sea urchin, octopus, mussels and usually several more additions depending on the catch of the day. The pasta noodles in this dish are made with milk instead of eggs.

Cetera, in addition to being the tuna capital of the world, supplies the area with Colatura di Alica, a fish sauce condiment made by stacking anchovies, fish, salt and flavorings together. This amber-colored liquid has an intense flavor and is used in spaghetti dishes.

Rigatoni alla Genovese is cod cooked in oil and lemon peel and Zuppa di Cozze is a tasty mussel soup.

Parmigiana di melanzane is an eggplant dish where the vegetable is layered with tomato sauce. But you can also get eggplant in a sweet dish. Melanzane al cioccolato is eggplant and chocolate and depending where it is ordered, it could be layered with ricotta or a liquor and flavored with cinnamon, lemon and candied orange.

Moscardini con le patate is baby octopus simmered in red wine vinegar combined with potatoes boiled in saltwater. It all comes together with white wine, olive oil, herbs and garlic. Try cuppo d’Amalfi from any street vendor — fried fish and squid served in a paper cone.

Is the Amalfi Coast calling to you? Then make a call to GetAway Travel! Call (262) 538-2140, e-mail: sue@getaway.travel or paul@getaway.travel