Cheesemakers working curd in copper vats With your hands

Buffalo dairy: milking, curd and tasting

Pontinia

A working buffalo dairy on the flat farmland south of Rome, where the clock belongs to the herd and you fit yourself into it. You turn up for the milking and stay for the cheese.

How the day goes

  1. Be there for the early milking — that is the start of the day, and the animals set it.
  2. Then the cheese room, where the curd turns into cheese in front of you.
  3. Packing after that, and a tasting at the end if you book that version.
  4. Rain changes nothing here, which makes it the day to keep in your back pocket.

You watch the cheese being made, you do not make it — if you want your own hands in the work, the pasta days near Tivoli and Frascati are the ones.

Where it is

Pontinia at its real position from Rome, with everywhere else we list behind it — so you can see how far out this one is.

Pontinia, and where it is from Rome Pontinia drawn at its real position relative to Rome, about 91 minutes by car. The faint dots are the other places we list, so you can see how far out this one is. 91 min Rome Pontinia

Open it where the roads are

Takes you to Pontinia — the town, not the meeting point. Check with the operator where exactly to turn up: their own page is linked further up.

Getting there

This one really wants a car

  • 1 h 31drive from the middle of Rome
  • 88 kmeach way
  • 2 h 30once you are there
  • Rent a car for the day

    The day stays yours: you leave when you want, stop where you want, and come back when the light goes.

    • You pick it up in Rome and drop it back in Rome
    • No timetable to build the day around
    • The stops on the way are the good part, and they need a car

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Localrent, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Localrent
  • Have a driver take you — so you can actually drink

    Our pick for this one

    There is wine at the end of this one. Somebody else driving is not a luxury here.

    • Picked up where you are staying, dropped back there
    • No parking to find and no ZTL to worry about
    • Nobody has to stay off the wine

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Welcome Pickups, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Welcome Pickups

Also around Pontinia

Pontinia With your hands

Buffalo farm visit with a full mozzarella tasting

The farm visit plus a tasting of what the dairy makes that day: ricotta, burrata, smoked and plain ovolina, stracciatella and smoked scamorza, all from buffalo milk.

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Pontinia With your hands

Inside a buffalo farm on the Pontine plain

Visit to a working buffalo farm and dairy at Pontinia: the stalls where the animals are milked, the energy systems, and the dairy where the cheese-making steps can be watched.

See the day
Pontinia With your hands

Buffalo farm visit with a mozzarella tasting

The same farm and dairy visit, extended with a tasting of what the dairy makes that day: buffalo ricotta, burrata, smoked ovolina, stracciatella and scamorza.

See the day
Pontinia On the trail

How a marsh became farmland, told in Pontinia

The Pro Loco of Pontinia runs the MAP, the museum of the Pontine plain: the story of how a malarial marsh south of Rome was drained in the 1930s and turned into farmland, told t…

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More with your hands

A misty autumn path through beech woods With your hands

Truffle hunting with a dog

Meet at the station, follow the dog into the wood, dig up what it finds.

€72 per person

Books on Farm Experiences & Tours

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Two people picking grapes in a vineyard With your hands

Join the grape harvest

Cut the grapes yourself. The window opens 1 September and shuts 15 October.

€40 per person

Books on Casale Mattia

See the day

About getting back: Pontinia has no station and we have not checked the bus to Latina Scalo, so the last useful departure from Pontinia is unknown. The last service of the day is a night train to Roma Ostiense; the last regional leaves at 22:57.

Checked 2026-08-08 · agricolacirce.it/experience

Photograph by Antsalvati, Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0. Not this place: it shows what the day looks like, and will be replaced with the operator's own photograph or ours from the field.

Links marked affiliate pay us a commission — you pay the operator's own price and we never take your money. How we rank