really, it's all about work ** wink ** wink **!!
Tuesday
OK, more like I don't want to talk about what happens at work and let's face it, it's MORE fun to talk about the AFTER work stuff. Don't get me wrong, I was working from 8am to 5pm daily - then having dinner WITH work folks and talking work as well.. so, even if we had some fun, we really did some good work :) annnndddd, I have a bridge... oh, wait, that's not it...
On to the first after work event was the group dinner, but first a bit about the hotel.
BUT first, The shower in my hotel - OMG, this thing is wonderful!! The rain shower is AWESOME!!!! it covers the WHOLE shower...OK, the showers here are tiny, but really, this thing was AWESOME!! OK, and the tiles were pretty as well - ha!
While we're here, the rest of the room looks like this:
such a cute room! The bed was comfy and the hotel was NEW... Hotel Antica Pusterla Relais de Charme. Seriously, if you ever go that way, stay there!!!!
OK, so the dinner that night was a group dinner... full long table full of folks - here is the menu. Nothing to write home about (but that is just what I'm doing -ha!)
The menu I had...
The fish menu.. but not really my thing as it was said to be very good.
And that was the end of Tuesday.
Wednesday was another full day, but the end started with the winery.... I had a great time getting wine with Mary, Tish, Anna and Mike (don't kill me if I got that wrong, names are hard for me at times!)
From here, we headed to Mikes house where his wife Lynn (haven help me for horrible name memory if that's wrong too as I owe them a thank you note for her helping us find the restaurant later that night!
Anyway - their house is phenomenal! It is a 1700's monastery on the church grounds and is BEAUTIFUL!
The capel that is on the grounds. They don't have keys to this part, but holy wow!!!
Adorable post box that was at the entrance to their home, as in on the wall of the church to the left of the chapel picture. He said there is no key for it currently however he has considered getting someone to make a key for them.
So Mikes wife is a caterer on the side... and it shows with the set up that she provided... the drinks - most are local wines that he goes out and sources from the local wineries.
The food... ah, the food that they laid out for our enjoyment! Seriously - I tried soft cheeses for the first time - mostly because I had watched a special on how blue cheese is made and how Gouda is simply less pungent blue cheese. I like blue cheese, so why not try Gouda? Well, I did and it's LOVELY!! Creamy and wonderful.
The emphasis on this trip was food and wine obviously!! ha! What more is there to life?? Oh, view and ancient houses!!
The entry to the house with original beams and the tile floor - just beautiful The dining room had a huge fireplace that took up about 1/2 the wall and was a full 5' tall with an open hearth - again - just amazing.... he even had a spit where he could roast meat over the flames. Talk about old school!
Tish with... hum.. yeah, won't even try the names here... I'm horrible and admit it!
We took a little tour to the wine cellar and the grounds....
NOTE the small window behind Mike's head it will be pointed out in a later picture...
view through some very old glass with ripples.. on the way to the wine cellar... I'll also point out this window in that same later picture.
Cute fountain on the grounds.
VERY old cart on the grounds as well - this portico is under the one we were being hosted on above... this is the "ground" level porch.
Looking out the opposite side - overlooking the road going down to the village. This road is closed now. It goes in front of the church, past the monetary then winds down the hill below:
where the road curves and the edge of the property... beautiful OLD wisteria - that trunk is thicker than my arm!
The rock face you see over my shoulder is where there is a WWII motorpool cave. Seriously! They have had concerts in there that they were invited to - the villa that is right there is built partially into the hillside as well. Such history!
OK, here is where the window discussion comes in... the one in the wine cellar is to the left of the picture just below the balcony... the one that was leaded looking over the valley is in the center... there are stairs going up from that door - but NOT down. The curved window to the right is in the footing of a bedroom on that side.. but the one on the left? Yeah, that is the mystery window. they have no idea where it goes to. There is no entrance to it from that house.. no where that they can find, yet it is appears to be a functioning window. My thought was that the room may be one that is accessed from the church rather than from the house... but they may never find out as they don't have access to the church.
As we were leaving the clock tower was lit. What a very special place.
we'll leave you with this nice panoramic view of it.....
Michelin star restaurant for dinner: El Coq (the cock)
I shall Blame Anna for this one... she recommended it and I jumped on it. I had a reservation for 6 - thought I had invited just 6 but then MORE showed up...so we had a table of 8. The hostess was very nice about it and let us squeeze into the one large table and we made the best of it and honestly it turned out quite well.
The menu
This is what we wanted to order, but, regretfully it was an all or nothing thing for the table. Because we had two picky eaters, we had to opt for a the choice on the first page. BUT there was an option to be "close" to the "Sustenance" so I didn't hesitate - I ordered that! I didn't even think twice, I just ordered that - knowing full well I could end up with a lot of fish items... and I did.. .but I lived to tell the tale.
First item given to us was a nut with cheese and nuts that had been assembled and then glued back into the walnut shell. quite tasty and fun to give it a whack! ha!
The next course was a break "course" with different butters, one with bay leaves, one with orange zest, one that was lard with flower petals on them... and it was purple but it was NOT sweet - very salty so the flower petals really were deceiving! I honestly thing that was the best one of them. The olive oil was also offered, one plain and one with salt and spices. The oil was very biter.
One of the courses was "King Crab" but really it was shredded and mixed with other things.. but it was way too fishy for my taste as the black and red in there is roe. I don't like roe at all.
Two of the others had Steak TarTar... I just can't see having raw meat, but to each their own, they were saying the salt in the salt block it's sitting on (yeah, that is NOT cake there!!) is supposed to cure it to some level. I still don't buy it!! And yes, had this been served to me I would have tried it, just like I did the fish stuff. I have to admit that I offered the prior fish to my table mates to "try" and didn't have a care in the world that they would eat it all.
Yep, not even going to try to "right" this picture. What is this you ask? It's a risoto. wha????? Yah, it's a risotto with beet root. It wasn't sweet. It was very tasty. I ate ALL of that stuff :) the instructions it came with was "do NOT stir it" ... uh, OK, but I can see why as the risoto was white underneath with cheeses and the beet sauce on top was thin and very tasty with just the right amount per bite.... mmmmm
annnndddd another fish disk, this was Sole with thinly sliced raw cauliflower (yeah, that's NOT cheese on there!) it was on a bed of something in a cream sauce and salmon roe. Well, the salmon re was VERY fishy, BUT once I kicked off the roe, it was not half bad and I ate all the fish with the cauliflower leaving just the roe behind. NOT converted, but I could tolerate it well enough. Not bad for someone that doesn't like fish!
This aperitif set up came out twice but I didn't think to take a picture of the first set of ones that came out. These were more on the dessert side of tastes were the first ones were more savory. Interesting flavors and on the first there was one with a peanut froth in the middle of a very round creampuff like pastry. Yeah, more hoity toity type stuff...
AND the bill.
Yes, you are reading that right for EIGHT individuals it was only 575 Euro's... so just a little over $600... not bad, not bad. I guess it's all relative, but since I was eating at the price of $5. and $10 a meal days prior I had no heartburn spending that much for one meal. I think I only ended up paying 70 Euros because others chipped in way too much and bailed. There was one last person adding everything and said we each owed something like $57 so I put on there $70 to add a good tip for them accommodating the extra bodies.
This is Anna - the reason we went here... it was fun, it was an experience and very enjoyable night. We started out at our 8:30 reservation - more like 9:00 by the time we found the place - and were there until midnight... talk about a LONG experience.
The Piazza that it was in was Piazza de la Signora.
Mary Lee, Tish and I on our walk into town!
