Posts from — November 2022

On Friday October 7th we headed off on our 19 day Wells Gray Tours adventure “A Taste of Italy”. We travelled by bus to Inn at The Quay in New Westminster for an overnight stay and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Munich Germany Saturday afternoon. The flight was long but the real “jet lagger” was the 9+ hour connection wait time to board the flight to Milan. By the time we arrived into Milan it was 12:30 a.m. local time and it was still a 45 minute bus ride to the hotel, when finally hit the bed we were exhausted.

Milan – 2 nights
The city of Milan is the second largest in Italy. Because of its strategic location, it has been ruled
by Romans, French, Spanish, and Austrians until finally coming under rule of the Kingdom of Italy
in the late 1800s. Our walking tour of the historic city included entry to the Duomo di Milano, the
city’s impressive gothic cathedral that took nearly six centuries to complete. The Milan Duomo is 70 yards wide and 170 yds long, from the front entrance to the altar.

Venice – 2 nights
Next we were off to Venice which is vivid, vibrant, and vivacious, the Queen of the Adriatic holds a mystical aura of a city of canals and palaces, and is one of the most enchanting places in the world. With canals, bridges and islands, Venice boasts of myriad magic festivals, exotic cuisine, and magnificent architecture. Called “the city of canals”, Venice extends across 120 islands that are joined by 455 bridges. Its colonization dates to the 5th century when inhabitants came to these marshy islands to escape the Barbarian invasion of the Mongols. Over time, the city grew across these islands, thus making Venice the only place of its kind in the world.

We boarded private water taxis for our transfer from the mainland to the Palazzo San Lorenzo, an intimate four-star hotel with an excellent location a few minutes walk from the famous Piazza San Marco.

We stayed two nights in the heart of Venice Venice is a city best explored by foot, so with the benefit of a local guide, we walk around the historic city. Attractions include Piazza San Marco, the Basilica, and Bell Tower. Admission was included to Doge’s Palace, seat of the Venetian Empire and one of the main landmarks in Venice. This afternoon, we enjoyed a Bacaro (wine bar) tour with appies and wine tasting.

Bologna – 2 nights
Leaving Venice, we travel to Ferrara, an intellectual and artistic centre that attracted the greatest
minds of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. Here, the concept of the ‘ideal
city’ came to life, marking the birth of modern town planning.

After a walking tour and lunch, we continued to Bologna, known for the oldest university in the Western world.
The day was devoted to the Parma area, known for the culinary treasures that it has given to the
world. We visit the Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Factory and the Prosciutto di Parma Museum,
learning about the unique methods that create these cheeses and Parma ham. Tastings were provided.

In Bologna, we savoured the cuisine that the region is known for; la Cucina Bolognese.

Florence – 4 nights
Our destination today is the Tuscany region and the city of Florence; which was our base for exploring the area. Florence is delightfully beautiful, a jewel of the Renaissance, and a centre for food and fashion in northern Italy. During a walking tour, a local guide showed us the open-air museum of Piazza Della Signoria, Santa Croce which houses the tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo, and the cathedral with Giotto’s bell tower and baptistery with its impressive “Gates of Paradise”. All these buildings demonstrate the traditions of Florentine art and architecture from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. We also visited Accademia, home of Michelangelo’s famed sculpture, David.
One of the people on our tour, Joan from Kamloops had a lifelong bucket list item of seeing the statue of David in person and she got to fulfill that dream.
Peggy from Salmon Arm was a real jokester and she always wanted to touch David’s bum….. well at least that’s what she told us!

We spent the morning exploring Siena. We walked through the vast Piazza del Campo to see the
magnificent frescoes of the Palazzo Publico and visit the amazing zebra-striped Cathedral with marble paving and elaborate pulpit. Next, we drove through some of Tuscany’s lovely cypress and olive groves while ascending to the ancient hilltop village of San Gimignano.

In medieval times, each merchant family built its own fortress tower and residential area, and many remain standing today, giving the nickname, “town of the fine towers”. Here we tried out the local gelato and had lunch at a local farmhouse in the countryside.
The next day the morning was free to explore Florence on our own. The afternoon was devoted to exploring the Chianti region, well known for its exceptional wines. We were treated to an evening at Castello di Verrazzano with its extensive farms and gardens.
Plus we learned of the legend and story of the “Black Rooster – Gallo Nero” and how the Chianti Classico wines can only come from this region. Dinner and a tour of the wine cellars were included.

This morninig we toured an olive plantation where we were shown how cold pressed olive oil is made. We purchased a travel container of their extra virgin olive oil in a tin container.
Following this we had an interactive lesson in Tuscan cooking and we were rewarded with the fruits of our labour with an exquisite lunch and of course copious quantities of wine.
This afternoon we were off on an excursion to the city of Pisa, once an important port. Its proud and wealthy merchants dedicated some of their fortunes to build a fine cathedral and baptistery, but today it is the bell-tower that attracts the most attention – by leaning four metres from perpendicular.

Rome – 3 nights
Today we traveled the road south towards Rome.
On the way there we visited the town of Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order here in 1208, and St. Clare, the founder of the Poor Sisters or Poor Clares.

Arriving in Rome, we stayed three nights at the wonderful Hotel Savoy. Built in the late 1800s, it has a great location next to fine shopping. Rome is called the Eternal City, a term coined by ancient Roman poets, and its 2,500 years of history have proven the name to be true.
This is the birthplace of western civilization and the city remains an important cultural and political centre in the modern world.

This morning, we have a guided walking tour of the Vatican, including entry into the Vatican Museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel to admire some of Michelangelo’s greatest masterpieces. The advantage of traveling in a group is being able to bypass the huge lines that form to enter!

Our locally-guided tour this morning includes entrance to the Colosseum, the largest amphitheatre in the Roman Empire, and the Forum, the centre of public life in ancient Rome. Palatine Hill is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, a truly ancient part of the city, and has been called “the first nucleus of the Roman Empire.”

Naples – 2 nights
Today we headed to Naples, third largest city in Italy. It was first settled by Greeks in the second millennium BC. Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Its historic city centre is the largest in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Neapolitan cuisine is noted for its association with pizza, which originated here, and we had lunch in a local pizzeria.

A walking tour was included this afternoon, then we settled into our hotel for two nights.

Mount Vesuvius dominates Naples, and its huge eruption in AD 79 buried nearby Pompeii under
4 to 6 metres of ash and pumice. Mostly preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinary insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants. It was a wealthy town with fine public buildings and luxurious houses with lavish decorations, furnishings, and works of art which were the main attractions for the early excavators.

Tonight is our farewell dinner to recap our Italian adventures, it was held at a farmhouse at the foot of Mount Vesuvius with local foods and Lacryma Christi wines.

Home to Canada
Saying farewell to Bella Italy, we depart Naples on Lufthansa, change planes in Munich and arrive in Vancouver in mid-afternoon.

What a great trip and adventure! Ciao!