We loved Italy so much we went back the next year. Valpolicella was the wine destination and Cinque Terra was the exercise activity. Since we were spending time in northern Italy we flew into Venice. Venice is like Disneyland for adults, it is completely surreal. For touring I recommend Rick Steves guide book or at least go to his website and download the Grand Canal tour for free. You simple hop on a vaporetto (water taxi) from the plaza le roma, start the tour on your phone (headphones are a good idea), and pause the program if it gets too far ahead. You disembark at St Mark’s plaza. Yes St Mark’s is touristy but there is a reason for it. The church is unique, spectacular and not ABC. The Doge’s palace and the bridge of sighs are also must dos. Did you know you can go up to see the workings of the clock tower that faces out onto the square? Its pretty neat with some great views. We did a Rick Steve’s recommended cicchetti tour and it was terrible. Cicchetti are little snacks on toast similar to pinchos in Northern Spain. There is nothing wrong with the concept, in fact it is a high art in Spain. The problem was the old guy has gotten fat off of Rick Steves and doesn’t even try to give you good value. The cicchetti were sub-average and the wine was sfuso (loose or fresh wine, not aged, not even bottled) which was embarrassing for a country with so much great wine. If you like the concept just do it on your own. By accident we bumped into a little restaurant whose menu looked good. It turned out to be so memorable we went back about 5 years later and ate there again. In fact I ordered the same dish – black pasta with mussel sauce. We also visited Murano & Burano, Murano is just glass which you can find all around Venice, Burano however is a very cute and colorful town. I would skip Murano and put Burano on the itinerary.
We picked up our rental car in Venice and headed over to the mainland on our way to our place in Valpolicella. We stopped into the Soave area, just east of Verona. Soave is a white wine DOC based primarily on the Garganega grape. This is your typical dry acidic wine like so many other Italian whites. A great food wine if paired properly. We visited the Gini estate. We were led through the tasting by the owner’s daughter. We had the standard young new release and one made from old vines. We cracked the old vine wine (70 year old vines) at home and it was spectacular with melon and honey flavours and tamed acid. Afterwards we went into town to see the castle and had a great lunch on the steps of an old church. We dropped into a tasting room of another winery in town.
Valpolicella is a DOC just north of Verona. It is famous for Amarone – made from 3 or 4 grapes you never heard of before Corvina Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara, these grapes and the terroir produce light wines so in order to up the concentration and flavor the industrious northern Italians dry the grapes after harvest thus shedding water from the grapes and concentrating flavours. If you like big Napa reds you will love these fruit bombs. Back home we usually get the Amarone light – Ripasso – which is wine that is passed over the crushed Amarone grapes thus adding body and flavour. The third wine that almost all winemakers in the area make is Recioto. This is one of the worlds greatest red dessert wines. It is made the same as Amarone but fermentation is stopped early thus leaving a good amount of sugar in the wine. All the wineries were great and easy to visit. Reservations are not required but are a good idea to avoid waiting. A case in point we booked Speri for a tasting. There were several groups getting their talk and our guide, Laura Speri, popped out of a back room and gave us a tasting of their full line-up and of course the story of the family.
We stayed at a lovely B&B or Agroturismo as the Italians call country B&Bs on the edge of San Pietro in Cariano. It was the perfect setting for a wine touring vacation with vineyards in front of the house and olive trees scattered around. It seems cake is a thing for breakfast in Italy and Laura made a delicious one every morning. Right around the corner from the B&B was a restaurant that made one of the best dishes I have every had in my life; beef cheeks braised in Amarone! We also had one of the best meals in our lives by accident. We decided to try another town for dinner one night. The restaurant we wanted to go to had a special event booked that night. As we came out we say this little restaurant with a lovely patio. We strolled into the restaurant and asked if they had a table for us. The lady looked at the rotund little chef, said something and he nodded and we were seated. It turns out this was multi-course extravaganza of a meal with 4 or 5 courses all of them spectacular all served with wine except dessert which was served with the most amazing grappa. What was really fun was hearing the story of the maître’d who definitely had an Australian accent. It turns out friends of hers were visiting from down-under and they told us the story. Her and her husband had been touring Italy a couple of years prior and had the same fantastic experience. She chatted with the chef-owner and he told her his wife had died years earlier and his daughters did not want to take over the business (they saw it first hand working there for years). He said he was thinking of shutting it down since it was getting too much for him. She asked him if he would keep going if she helped him. He said yes and she packed up her belongings and moved to Italy. I am waiting for her book – Under the Valpolicella Sun – to come out.
Our next stop was Bolzano. This is not your quintessential Italian town, in fact it feels more like Germany. It is 85km south of the Austrian border. Many of the restaurants serve hearty Germanic fare not pizza and pasta. In the morning expect your hotelier to say “morgen” (short version of guten morgen) to you not buon giorno. The top site, other than the spectacular Dolomite mountains (which were covered by clouds most of the time), is Otzi. He is a 5300 year old hunter that died and was preserved in ice. The museum is really fascinating. They do an excellent job in showing you the detective work the archeologists did to understand Otzi. Although you can see his frozen form the best parts are his belongings that tell you about how he lived and hunted. We did get a break in the weather and spent a good part of a day at the Trauttmansdorft gardens. They were beautiful gardens with a few neat exhibits inside and out. We went south to Tramin next. This is in the northern part of the Alto Adige wine region – think beautiful white wine. We stopped at a couple of wineries on the way down – no need for a reservation. After checking in at our hotel we walked through town to Cantina Tramin – a very impressive modern winery. We searched this winery out since we are big fans of their Lagrein Rose. We picked up some salad fixings on the way back to the hotel, ordered a pizza from downstairs, cracked open a bottle of wine we bought that day and had a wonderful dinner.
Our next destination was the beautiful Lake Como. This area is about seeing opulent villa’s built on hillsides overlooking the lake. We were stationed in Varenna and enjoyed walking along the lake (literally – as the walkway is actually elevated in spots as the hill drops right into the water) on our way to dinner in the evenings. You hop on one of the frequent ferries and go across to Menaggio and Bellagio and tour the towns. One must is to walk from Menaggio to Villa Balbianello for a very interesting tour and see the beautiful grounds, so beautiful Star Wars and other movies used the site for filming. No George Cluny up here, he is further south near the town of Como.
So now a chance to wear off some of the fabulous food we have been eating. We drove down to La Spezia and parked the car (not easy to do – research your options better than I did). We then hopped on the train over to Vernazza, one of the five Cinque Terra towns. The reason we didn’t drive to Vernazza becomes evident when you see the hills plunge straight into the Mediterranean. Parking is also an issue, there simply is none in the town. These colorful towns cling to the sides of hills and are connected by trails. When we visited there had been a lot of rain so the trails were supposedly closed. Our B&B host and another couple staying at the B&B both said just go for it, we did and never had an issue. However I will add that most of the lower, easier and less scenic routes were closed so you had to climb up to higher routes. If I had the choice I would do the higher routes so you can walk through the vineyards clinging to the hills. I don’t know what it is about the Mediterranean but it mesmerizes me every time. One really neat thing I have never seen anywhere else is a cog track that goes up the hill with this crazy machine that has a seat, a cargo tray at the back and a motor with a gear that pulls the contraption up the cog track. After our exhausting first and longest day we stopped into a restaurant built into the side of a hill with an amazing view. We ordered a charcuterie plate and a few glasses of wine. I would not travel here just for the wine, but it went well with the food and fantastic with the local seafood. The other great news is the towns are also connected by rail and boat. So you can hike one way and train or boat it back.
On the final leg of our trip we headed over to Padua but first stopped outside of Modena to visit a Balsamic vinegar facility. We had a fantastic tour with just one other couple. The young lady explained the process and differences between condimento and sour vinegar. We tasted 100 year old condimento balsamic and it was mind blowing. Now this was one gift shop I did not mind exiting through. Padua is a very nice little city with some great sights like Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel, St. Anthony of Padua’s Basilica and the anatomy room at the ancient university. It always helps your memory of a city when you stay in nice accommodations. The B&B we stayed in was lovely and the family that runs it was super friendly. The son who is the main B&B guy even drove us downtown and told us how to catch the bus back. Since Padua is only about ½ hour from the Venice airport this was a better option than driving back into Venice, turning the car in and bussing it back to the airport.
After these two back to back Italy trips we have fallen in love with this country. The diversity of terrain, history, food, wine and sights is exceptional, and I should add most of the people were great.