Umberto Pelizzari Master Experience
Asinara National Park, September 15/19, 2019
Daily Program
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Independent arrival in Stintino (Alghero) and meeting at the port at 2.00 p.m.
You will embark on a wooden Leudo dated 1941 and sail along the south coast of the Asinara National Park. With the support of the ship’s captain you will start to discover this island covered with Mediterranean scrub and full of animals: white donkeys, which are the symbol of its identity, mouflons, boars, wild horses, gulls, shags, peregrine falcons and magpies.
Arrival in Cala d’Oliva after about 3 hours of pleasant slow navigation to start discovering the island.
Check-in at the new Ittiturismo Boutique Hotel, inaugurated this year, located 20 meters from the dock.
Aperitif and meeting with Umberto Pelizzari.
Dinner on the terrace of the hotel with cuisine based on fresh fish daily caught by the hotel manager and local products.
After dinner, Umberto will present his team and explain the program of the Master Experience. After that you can watch a documentary video produced by Alessandro Masala, head of Cala d’Oliva Diving Center and instructor at the Apnea Academy.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Early in the morning and before breakfast you will reach the beautiful Cala Sabina Beach for relaxation and breathing during the awakening of the sun.
After that, breakfast with fresh juices and centrifuges, homemade cakes and coffee will be served under the beach pergola.
Departure on board the rafts up to the sea point where you will dive for the first time and do free diving with a rope with Umberto Pelizzari and his team.
Free diving with Umberto Pelizzari is an extraordinary experience and you will remember it for a long time.
Return to Cala d’Oliva for lunch at the B & B
In the afternoon, second rope and recreation session.
In the evening you will reach on foot the workshop of the artist Enrico Mereu http://www.loscultoredellasinara.com/it/ to admire his sculptures. He served as a prison guard in the Asinara penal settlement until 1998, when the prison was closed and he retired to devote himself full-time to his passion for sculpture shown since he was a boy. Vittorio Sgarbi described Mereu as follows: “he is like nature, he makes changes but does not change, it is like a light from the sea that floods our soul”.
After visiting the workshop, a BBQ dinner will be cooked on the beach and served on the terrace of Mereu’s house.
It will be an experience of storytelling about his artistic history as well as his 30-year job as a prison guard.
After dinner a myrtle tasting will take place.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
In the morning: practice of relaxation and breathing during the awakening of the sun on the pontoon of Cala d’Oliva.
At the end you will reach the Hotel for breakfast.
Departure on board the dinghies for the second day of free diving experience in the beautiful sea of the island together with Umberto Pelizzari and his team.
Return to Cala d’Oliva for lunch at the Asino Bianco Restaurant located in the marina of Cala d’Oliva.
In the afternoon the first diving with cylinders will take place in the area adjacent to the integral reserve.
Before sunset you will travel through the island with a few jeeps: you will pass by the Punta Scorno lighthouse before reaching Punta della Scomunica, that is the highest place on the island, at 408 m above sea level, with a breathtaking view of the island and the Sardinian coast.
Aperitif at sunset.
A special person, the inspector Gianmaria Deriu, who had worked thirty-three years for the Asinara maximum security prison, will stay with the participants during excursion and dinner, in order to tell them many stories about violent events of Italian history .
Gianmaria Deriu knows the history of Asinara in the last thirty years better than anyone. In the so called “bunker” he met Raffaele Cutolo, who got married there (“he was very respectful”), and also the head of the so-called Cupola; he met violent members of the Red Brigades.
Special prisons, Art. 416 bis of Criminal Code, the New Camorra organized, the massacres of 1992 and Art. 41 bis and the maxi-trial, of course…. Judges Falcone and Borsellino arrived there in the summer of 1985 in order to write the famous committal for trial. “They stayed there, at the Red Houses, Falcone brought a load of document folders. He used to come to the bar in the evening, when no more prisoners were at work.
As a precaution he usually arrived after midnight and relaxed by playing billiards. Someone had to taste their meals before”. The bunker, of course, but also Fornelli, the other much larger maximum security prison at the opposite side of the island. Here the black terrorists, there the red terrorists, but also the bosses of Cosa Nostra, like Leoluca Bagarella, and also those of ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra or Sacra Corona Unita.”
Dinner at the hotel restaurant
After dinner a sharing of feelings with Umberto through the projection of the film “Le Grand Bleu” on the walls of the priest’s house in the heart of the village … a cinema under the stars that evokes the challenges between Mr. Enzo Maiorca and Mr. Jacques Majol, two friends and important people in the athletic course of the free-diving champion Umberto Pelizzari.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Early in the morning you will reach on foot the Cala del Detenuto floating platform in order to practice relaxation and breathing during the awakening of the sun.
At the end you will go back to the Hotel for breakfast.
Departure on board the rafts for your last Sea-Master Experience with Umberto Pelizzari to discover the archaeological wreck and the amphorae at Cala Reale. The archaeological site of Cala Reale, in the Asinara, consists of the cargo of a Roman ship which was wrecked at the entrance of Cala Reale while coming from today’s Portugal, in late Imperial age.
Finally you will reach by bus The Fortress named Castellaccio, a half-ruined medieval structure overlooking the plain and the Strait of Fornelli with a breathtaking view.
Picnic lunch at the Fortezza.
After lunch Gianmaria Deriu will take you to the maximum security prison in Fornelli. On the way back to Cala d’Oliva he will show you Totò Riina’s bunker, the Red Houses and the Observatory of the Memory of the Asinara National Park.
In the evening, a goodbye BBQ dinner will take place with musical accompaniment by Alessandro and his musician friends.
After dinner gin tonic with Asinara rosemary will be offered to participants.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
After breakfast, you will leave the hotel and board the fishermen’s leudo for your last experience dedicated to fishing.
After an hour you will reach the fishing point where nets or traps are usually set (they will be dropped the day before by the fisherman Gennaro). Everybody will participate in taking fish away from nets. After that fish will prepared to be served at lunch together with spaghetti and sea urchins.
Captain Gennaro will explain history, fishing techniques and tradition of the fisherman’s job
At about 3.00 p.m. you will disembark in Stintino.
Individual participation fee in a double room at the boutique Hotel Cala d’Oliva € 3.500
Supplement for single room (3 bedrooms) € 250
Supplement for double for single use (6 bedrooms) € 480
Asinara Park, 15/19 September 2019
The journey will only be confirmed when a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 14 people will be reached
Admissions will be accepted until April 30, 2019
The individual participation fee includes:
– Presence of Umberto Pelizzari and the team of his Apnea Academy during the three days of the Master Experience program.
– Four nights in a double/single room at the Boutique Hotel Ittiturismo, Cala d’Oliva (this new hotel will be opened during Easter holidays 2019)
– Lunches and dinners with drinks included as per program (from dinner of the first day to lunch of the last one)
– A gift signed by Umberto Pelizzari
– Visits and excursions as included in the program
– Presence of Graziano Mascheri (Founder and Experience Designer of Experientiae) during the above Master Experience
– Medical assistance and baggage insurance
The individual participation fee does not include:
– Possible extra drinks
– Travel to Stintino (the agency can organize the trip to Alghero airport on request)
– Free diving sports equipment (wetsuit, fins, mask, belt)
– Insurance cover against cancellation of the trip before departure (this should be stipulated when signing the “experience” package)
Technical Organization by M.S.T. Srl – Via Giotto, 26 – 20145 Milan
