Piedmont

All of Italy is wine country.  There are over 1500 distinct wine regions in Italy.  We've explored many different wines throughout our trip, primarily the grapes of Sicily (Nero D'Avola) and Tuscany (Sangiovese).

Rivaling Tuscany as the most famous wine region of Italy is Piedmont.

The capital of Peidmont is Turino (you may recall they had the Olympics there some years back).  This region is known for a grape called Nebiolo.  Many famous wines in this region, such as Barolo, Barbaresco, and Asti.

We're staying two nights in La Morra, and two nights in Monforte d'Alba.  Amusingly they're less than 10 miles apart from one another :)

Piedmont may be the most beautiful region I've see so far:

The Alps to the North, and endless vineyards.  

At this lookout point in La Morra they have this cool plaque with a map that you can use to identify the towns on the horizon.

Piedmont is also known for truffles, and we found a particularly dangerous store in La Morra. 

An assortment of various truffley products.

We may have left here with one or two jars.  Or ten.

So Barolo is only about two miles from La Morra.  Two very winding miles.  But we drove down there a few times for wine and food.  I have to give a special shout out to a place called La Cantinetta.  

Great food!  Kyra and I sat down outside in the sun.  I ordered a risotto made from Barolo.  When Kyra originally went to order, they asked her if she wanted to try a special hand made chicken ravioli that they were working on.  Once she ordered it, they apologized and said that they'd run out, so she went with a cheese ravioli.  But they were so apologetic that they kept bringing us dish after dish of food on the house.  Some of the best pasta we've had on the trip!  

Check out how yellow the yolk on this egg is.  The dish was a single ravioli with an egg yolk inside.

We visited two wineries on Tuesday.  

This is Chiara Boschi.  We tried many of her wines, which she primarily makes herself.

The second winery was Silvio Grasso, at which Kyra made a new friend.

Later that day I was out shooting photos and saw the sun setting over Piedmont.  I shot several photos, I think this was the best.

Lake Garda

Most Americans have heard of Lake Como.  Lake Como is in a region of Italy right along its northern border with Switzerland and Austria.  This area of the Alps is home to several lakes, the largest of which is actually Lake Garda, on the shores of which rested our next destination.  Saying goodbye to Jessah and Cheryl, Kyra and I traveled West:

The area is quite pretty, and really doesn't feel like the rest of Italy.  It's much more Alpine and mountainous.  In fact I heard more German being spoken here than Italian.  Unfortunately it was pissing down rain the whole time we were there.  So while we were there only one night, I didn't get a lot of photos other than the view from my room:

This was our hotel, the Grand Hotel Gardone Riviera.

The Isle of Burano

Friday we hopped on a boat to the islands of Murano and Burano.



You may have heard of Murano glass.  It's everywhere in Venice, and that's where it's made. You can get Murano glass just about anywhere in Venice, but the real quest was on Burano:
 

The restaurant in the above video: Trattoria DaRomano.

They invited us back into the kitchen to watch them make the risotto.

Mmmmm, risotto!

Check out this risotto I found!

Burano is quite the picturesque little sea town.

One of my missions while on this Italy trip was that my aunt Deanna had tasked me with finding an old lady in Venice who was hand sewing lace.

If found Lydia, sitting here sewing extremely intricate lace.

Some of these table clothes took years to sew and cost over $5000.  I didn't buy one of those.  But I did get a nice one!

This place even has a lace museum.  Burano is the place for lace!

Venice by Night

These are all long exposure shots I did while wandering around Venice one evening.

The view from our apartment.

The Bridge of Sighs.

Venice

Leaving Bologna's Emilia Romagna region, we headed about 100 miles North East into the Veneto.  Time for Venice!

Before I go on about Venice, I have to give a shout out.  There's a little town just outside of Venice called Mestre.  It's basically sitting at the other side of the bridge before you drive onto the island.  We were starving by the time we made it this far, so we decided to randomly pull over in Mestre.  

Kyra pulled out her phone and lead us to a restaurant called "Tavernetta A Scuea".  Holy crap!  I didn't have my camera with me because I was so hungry I left it in the car, but this was one of the best meals of the trip!  I know that Kyra and Jessah got some photos.  We were the only party in the restaurant for lunch.  There were only three people working: the front of the house lady, the chef, and his helper.  They were laughing at us because we were so enthusiastic about their food.  We took photos of the food and the chef.  If you're ever going to Venice, you HAVE to check this place out!

http://www.ristoranteascuea.com/

OK, on to Venice!

Gondolas on Piazza St Marco, overlooking the entry into the Grand Canal.

Kyra and I on the Rialto.  That's also my spiffy new leather jacket that I picked up in Florence :)

The view from the Rialto.

Fish market!

Shrimp ("gambas")

Scallops.

Sardines.

More scallops!

We had lunch on the Grand Canal.  This was the view from my table.

Seafood salad appetizer.

Squid Ink pasta.

Squid Ink teeth!

Cool bridge.

Cheryl!

I haven't seen Cheryl in six years.  She flew down from England to hang with us in Venice for a few days :)

Our apartment was pretty cool.  That's my laundry hanging on the line with the guy in the gondola photographing my undies.