Fantastico! Bob & Bernie in Sicily!

Sicily and Italy's Piedmont

We have returned from our 2 1/2 weeks in Sicily and the Italian Piedmont area, what a trip. For the first week it was just Bob and myself with the two tour guides Claudio and his wife Pat. Couldn't get any more personalized.

Each hotel we stayed at had breakfast included to get us started for the day. This is Claudio at one of the spreads. You can see why it is easy to gain weight.

We were able to see lots of the old beautiful churches and castles that are still there with tourists lined up to see and take pictures.

As we toured the western part of Sicily we saw miles and miles of grape vines. All were well tended and ready for a good harvest this year. Then if you looked off to the side you could see old Greek temples. We got a good look at this one and also went up a little higher to where they were doing excavations..

One of the first wineries we visited was the Palenta winery. Here is a bottle of Nero de Avola that we tasted. You can see Bob in the background enjoying his taste. This is the most popular grape of Sicily. We have had it before but this was the best of the vintage. We went farther west and ended up by the sea salt area not far from Marsala. We were able to see a nice 20 minute show on how it takes almost a year to have a harvest of sea salt. Of course, I had to buy a small container just to say I had been there. After we left the salt beds we headed into Marsala. This had two Marsala wineries we visited. It is great to see they are taking the production of Marsala seriously again. For many years it was used as a cash maker and the quality went way down. Today they have some fantastic wines. The good wine is at least 8 years old before it is available for purchase. Yummy.
In this great country if you are not tasting a wine you are probably eating something. The olive trees abound. Olives there remind you of nothing you have here in the bottles. They are firmer and do not have that briny taste. We had a really great olive salad at the Ceuso winery. They even gave us a bottle of their olive oil to bring home. We drank their wine while we were there at the winery having a picnic lunch with the owner and his niece. During the second week of touring we had another couple and a single gal with us that were all well versed in wine. The wife of the other couple is a vegetarian but that did not stop all of the rest of us enjoying all the delicious meat dishes that were presented. One of the stops we made on the trip was to a cheese factory. Wish we could have brought some of it home. At this cheese factory they also made all kinds of sausages. We got to go into the factory but they were not making anything that day. The group ran into them at the farmers market on our last Saturday selling their goods. At every winery we were warmly welcomed usually by the actual owner or someone from their family. We spent hours touring and tasting and munching. We have a list of all the wines we tasted we will bring down with us. Barbaresco is one of the most popular wines of the Piedmont region. We certainly enjoyed them.
We thought of all of you as we enjoyed this great trip. Bob thought of our Happy Hour when we saw this grouping of statues. He said that this is the "Italian Happy Hour" because they had shed their garments just like we at SPR do but they don't look as happy. I was so glad I was able to walk around and keep up to see every thing. My taste buds even returned so I could eat the food and drink the wine. Here I am with a bottle of wine named for me!