Prologue – The Why?

Welcome to our blog “When Wine Calls” – A Trip a Lifetime in the Planning.

I know many of you reading this blog will be asking why we called the blog “When Wine Calls”?

For our friends who know us all too well they will easily know the answer to this question while the rest of you will work it out quickly as you read more and more on our upcoming travels.

This adventure has been on the drawing boards for a long time and like everything else in recent years was derailed by Covid as well as my personal health issues with cancer. Indeed, to be contemplating this trip at all was a pipedream several years ago but here we are only a few weeks away from turning up at the airport after years of planning, planning, planning and more planning.

Many of our friends have asked us why we did not just go to a travel agent to organise this trip and I can tell you there were many times we thought that ourselves. The answer is that we wanted this trip to be unique to us, not from a set of travel brochures. Also, the challenge to put this itinerary together has been great therapy providing a distraction while I recovered with the actual trip the goal.

Where did this trip originate from you may also be asking – well Pauline and myself have always loved travelling in the UK and Europe but it has either been work related trips for myself or short overseas trips with the children. Our last big trip was our honeymoon over 34 years ago and, prior to that when Pauline and I first met in Europe in 1986. While these trips gave us the opportunity to see such wonderful places it never really provided the opportunity to spend time in small rural towns throughout Europe, soak up being a local or do the unusual rather than as a mainstream tourist.

It is that desire to appreciate life as a local (short term local at least) immersed in beautiful off the track places and ticking off many bucket list items, all whilst enjoying the delights of local good food and more importantly taste the vast variety of good wines in some of the best wine areas in the world that is at the heart of this trip, and which makes us so excited.

So, with that background, welcome to our “When Wine Calls” – A Trip a Lifetime in the Planning. We look forward to sharing upcoming episodes of our blog with you in the coming weeks.

Bruce & Pauline