Category: The Summer Vintage

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we attempt to reflect over the past three months of “The Summer Vintage” adventure. Throughout the trip and when we returned home the most common question we were asked was “so what was has been the highlight of the trip” and our answer has always been “there were…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we finish our 3-month adventure appropriately in the Champagne capital of the world. Driving up the motorway towards Paris it was with very mixed emotions. We were very excited to be travelling to the Champagne region and catch up with our friends that were also travelling there so…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we drive through the magnificent French countryside on route to Burgundy. Driving through France the first observation you get is that the scenery is so different from that in Italy. Apart from the Alps the land is so flat with country roads that are so straight and head…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we commence the final leg of our adventure travelling through the spectacular countryside of France. When we were planning this trip, we looked at several alternatives to get from Northern Italy to Annecy in France including via train and car but none of the options were viable, in…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we continue our travels through Northern Italy. When we were initially planning this adventure, we had not factored in a trip to the Dolomites. However, after meeting a couple who were staying in one of our favourite wineries in Tasmania while we were there and had recently travelled…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we tour the intriguing city of Verona. It was only a few hours train trip from Venice to Verona so what could go wrong. It started with us unable to find the carriage or seat numbers on our on-line tickets. They had to be on the paperwork somewhere…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” this time we are back in Northern Italy in the romantic city of Venice. Arriving in Venice proved to be more difficult than we had envisaged. The plan was that we would arrive on the ferry from Rovinj into the main port area and then catch a local Vaporetto…

Welcome back to “When Wine Calls” as we end our travels through Croatia at the picturesque town of Rovinj. Rovinj was always going to be a highly emotional stop for us on our trip as Pauline’s father Geoff tragically and suddenly passed away here 6 years ago. Pauline and I travelled over from Australia at…

Dobar dan and welcome back to “When Wine Calls” from on board MV Bellissima. Our first full day on board was busy as we set sail for the Elaphiti Islands with the first item on the itinerary being, what else, but an onboard wine tasting presented by the very knowledgeable, multi talented Head Steward “Mate”…

Dobar dan and welcome back to “When Wine Calls” this time from fabulous Croatia. During the 3-hour car ride down from Split we were not far out of Dubrovnik when we received an E Mail from our hotel advising us that due to “unforeseen circumstances” our booking had been cancelled. We immediately thought that our…