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Archive for ‘June, 2026’

Venice to Turkey 04

Day 04 Lunch & Travel to Ravenna

We have breakfast with Scott & Manuela and engage in fun chats. We walk down into the village to an ATM where we supply ourselves with Euros. Then it’s off for a scenic ride and views of Lake Sirio. Beautiful countryside! In Ivrea, we walk across the River Dora.

In Ivrea, we walk about town and check out some shops and interesting streets.

We have a bite to eat and glasses of wine (of course!) and end up back at Scott & Manuela’s house. I should probably call it Manuela and Scott’s house as Manuela inherited it from her mom!

Scott takes us to Turin train station. We make it onto the train with minutes to spare so cameras are temporarily forgotten. The train ride is smooth and uneventful. But the food is horrible. Probably the worst we will experience on this entire vacation! We change trains in Bologna. We arrive in Ravenna before 6 PM. Our hotel is directly across the street from the train station and easy to find. Except that we check in in one building and then have to cross the street to the actual hotel which turns out to be more like a B&B with a common room that we don’t ever use.

We take short naps. Then it’s downstairs to a seafood restaurant named “Osteria Il Paiolo”. The seafood pasta is fabulous! Before we leave the restaurant, a table of 8 next to us fills up with tourists also planning to board our same ship tomorrow. Fun conversations ensue!

We are very tired and we will sleep well. Back in the hotel overlooking the train station, we get everything ready for the morning. Early alarm is set.

Venice to Turkey 03

Day 03 Chiaverano, Italy

We get a very comfortable nights sleep and wake refreshed before going upstairs to their apartment. It is now Day 03 of our adventure! We have coffee, fruits and pastries with Scott and Manuela. It’s raining steadily. We head out anyway and tour the neighboring town of Ivrea and the surrounding areas. This is a very beautiful part of Italy, very lush and green! Scot & Manuela take us to a Grappa Distillery and we tour and taste! Grappa is a liqueur made by fermenting the left over must from making grape wine!

Then we tour around Ivrea for a bit, checking out the town.

We stop for lunch at CellaGrande for a lunch and wine tasting. Erbaluce grapes fermented several ways are featured. Plain fermentation, in oak and on skins, underwater for consistency of temperature and pressure. We choose to do a tasting menu of White and Red wine also. Dessert wine is pictured. Our waiter is Ricardo. Ricardo is very pleasant and knowledgeable.

Made a second wine tasting at Pozzo and taste some more very good wines!

Then we proceeded on to an overlook with park and gardens and took a stroll. Our cameras appreciated that! After which we visited the church above Scott and Manuela’s house. The skies after the morning rains were very photogenic!

Now it’s back to the house to relax for the evening.

Venice to Turkey 01

Day 01, 02 & 03, Travel Days!

Our good friend Tony takes us to the airport for an overnight flight. We’re starting out here at LAX, on the largest airliner I’ve ever been in my life! There are two full tiers of people. Two sets of staircases to access the upper tier, one in the front of the plane and one in back! There are also two jetways attached to the plane! It is also our first time on Lufthansa Airlines. A lot of firsts already.

We get settled in our seats and await takeoff which is one of the smoothest ever! Then we are handed menus on the plane! When the food comes, it has metal utensils and acrylic drinking glasses! Well, you can’t have everything!

10.5 hours in the air for the first leg to Munchen (Munich), Germany. I take a sleeping pill and manage several hours sleep. When I awake, breakfast of eggs and spinach are served. Landing in Munich to change from Lufthansa to Dolomiti Air is uneventful. We first have to go through immigration control and convince the guards that we will promise to leave and go home in a month! We ride a bus and load the plane on the tarmac.

It is now Day 02. The one hour flight goes by fast and we land in Turin, Italy. We retrieve our luggage and our friend Scott is there to pick us up. He is driving a tiny rental car and it’s cramped but not uncomfortable. Less than an hour later we are stopping at a local winery where Scott knows the proprietor and our wine tasting has begun. We get to Scott and Manuela’s house at the base of a church and we see why they drive such a tiny car. The roads are tight and the corners are many! We have arrived in Chiaverano, Italy, about an hour north of Turin!

Scott and Manuela take us to a favorite restaurant where we indulge in seafood and pasta. Back at their house, we taste grappa and other aperitifs before turning in for the night. They have allotted an entire apartment on the downstairs level to us!