Kemal Gurbuz of Artemis Wine House.
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Pizza portafoglio is meant to be eaten on the run, but the clouds burst just as Costa Pizzeria’s vendor hands over our slices. Flagstones glisten and raindrops ping off the umbrellas of passing Neapolitans.
I’ve left my brolly on Regent’s Seven Seas Splendor, which is docked south of here at Salerno. Huddled beneath the dripping laneway awning, my daughter and I devour Napoli’s signature street food: Neapolitan pizza folded like a portafoglio (wallet) and wrapped in waxed paper. Dough pillows on the package’s concertinaed edges; it looks like a tiny umbrella, frilled and folded. Basil and tomato from the vegetable allotments and canning factory we passed on the drive here ooze from the folds; secreted within is fresh mozzarella. If the way to our hearts is through our stomachs, the waiting ship – which has its own selection of exemplary restaurants – is playing cupid on this Mediterranean voyage.
From Salerno it ferries us to the Turkish port of Kusadasi, where we journey into hills weighted with fruit trees: peaches, pomegranates, cherries, black mulberries. In the village of Sirince, Kemal Gurbuz of Artemis Wine House sells the wine he’s made from this bounty. Peach is most popular – the region is famed for this summer fruit. But the cherry has a value-for-money kick.
“It’s my best wine,” Gurbuz says. “Seventeen per cent alcohol.”
We take the bus into Athens from Piraeus, our final port of call. “Don’t order too much lunch,” says guide Lucy Balafa. “The servings are big.”
We find an outdoor table at Kitro in the Plaka district and, heedless of Balafa’s advice, order pork gyros, a clay pot-full of moussaka and a white wine blend of malagousia grapes from northern Greece and assyrtiko grapes from Santorini. Sun sifts through the plane trees as we grow plump as peaches, and tipsy as cherry wine.
The writer travelled as a guest of Regent Seven Seas Cruises
Dining and Cooking