Tuesday/Wednesday for work...

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!

Italy bound!

My first flight out of Stuutgart. Not a bad airport to fly out of, really.  The wait to get in was short for a Monday morning AND you don’t have to take off your shoes!  Score!

 

I THOUGHT I had two seats to myself but surprise, I didn’t!  They shuttle everyone to the tiny planes and they took two trips out with people. We were just the first load - bummer! I can live with that. It wasn’t horrible..

The view on the ground. These planes are two seats on either side and only about 1/2 hour flight to Munich. So off we went!

Regretfully there’s a lot of “haze” in the air right now with I assume humidity...who knows! Just hazey 

Hello Alps!!!

Why does this look so awkward?  Well, because I had an aisle seat so this was taken over others

My rental car was a cute little white Fiat 500.  Those things are surprisingly roomy inside - really!  It was also a diesel.  which is SO good on gas mileage!!  I drove an hour each way to Vicenza and drove 1/2 hour (well, only 13 miles, but LOTs of turns) to/from work daily and to dinner nightly... and still only 20 euro worth of gas!!  Really??? I know why folks like Diesels here!!

So, I got here... went searching for my hotel... and BOY was THAT hard to find!!!
Why?  Because it's NOT marked... at all.  It is an address, but that address is through a set of apartments and the address placard is very small...

SO, the green door with the arch is the door to the hotel... and one would think the green CAR doors are the ones that would open to reveal parking for the hotel... yeah, no...  The parking is funny.  it's around the corner (I'm standing in it for the next person).  It's a gravel slot (not a lot, slot) that has room for two cars only and it's on an angle with NO curb cut.  So, you have to jump the curb and angle down the small hill (3' to 4' drop in slope over about 10'?) anyway, it's a little dicey to get in/out.  The ONLY good thing about it is that it's on a curve and you can see both ways to back out easily :)  Anyway, if that's the ONLY thing I can complain about with the hotel, it's all good... 

The orange building IS the hotel.  There are I believe FOUR rooms.  The rest are apartments.  Cool!

So, I drove by it three times before I called the hotel and asked them what to look for.  The person was so nice, she spoke english and waited for me outside of the doors and lead me to a parking spot...

 The hallway looking towards the hotel - VERY wide hallway...

 This sign in the hallway...because doesn't every hotel have vespa parking in the entry, right?  LOL

Looking back towards the road - the doors are about 3+ foot wide each... so this is a huge entryway!!  I got settled in the room and then headed out to the "no host social" - aka buy your own booze social.

Night one was the "social"  This is the picture I sent to Butch in a panic!

Yeah, these are NOT my people.  The social was redirected to the base bar.. and there was stuff going on in there... and they were NOT my people.  I was just about to leave when ONE more came up.  Then one more... then that was enough of a quorum for me to stick around and have a glass of wine... THEN the rest showed up and there were about 30 folks in there.  The roster (after the fact) showed 40, but some names were not familiar, so pretty sure some of those folks never did show for the event.  Either way, there were quite a few who showed.  Three others opted to go to dinner with me towards the end of the night... we went to a Trattoria outside of town.  The food was delicious!!!

Appetizer - the round circle is a cheese with truffles in olive oil, the grilled cubes are polenta along with some tasty salame.... mmmmmm

Main course was a lovely steak that melted in your mouth!!  I ate almost the whole thing.. I honestly felt like a pig trying to eat it all.... I gave it a good go!!  There were also caramelized onions, potatoes, peas and string beans as well as a flavored chickpea type of thing (the red?) annnndddd more polenta.  I love me some polenta but honestly I ate the WHOLE appetizer - OINK!!

Coming home was fun because although I could pull up my map in the parking lot my phone would NOT load the directions!!!  So, I went by the seat of my pants and started towards town with my crappy connection... and about 1/2 way "home" to the hotel it kicked in and I was (thankfully) going the right direction!  Yeah me for my sense of direction!

The street right outside the hotel after dark.  I seriously love that the streets are well lit and feel safe.  I was told by the hotel that they ARE safe so I believed them.  Good thing too as I was dragging my butt home at 11pm after a late dinner!

Driving around....and more odds and ends.

OK, in the distance there is a FUN art installation.  Why do I call this an art installation?  Well, because it's been there since we got here and before... and the item is a LARGE nest. During the night it is lit up with white on the poles and blue on the nest... it was all painted white until recently.  The poles were turned to black and white a few weeks ago... then early last week they updated the poles to black and white... so I drove by an saw a crane putting GOLD EGGS in the nest for easter!  I was soo excited it was silly!  ha!  I have been waiting to get a good picture going into work as that is the time I'm on the right side of the road for a picture... and earlier this week I was going super slow in a traffic jam (Stau) and got the perfect chance!!  

I

 CHECK out the gold eggs!!!  Cute!!!  I'm in love.  Not the black and white poles necessarily, but the gold eggs still make me smile every single morning :)

 Further along on this same drive I took a side road and caught the sun just peeking over the hills of Stuttgart... so pretty... traffic was horrible that morning!!  I was actually late to work - but that's OK, I made up for it later :)

THEN later in the week I was going to pick up some things from the online garage sale site (patience, it's at the bottom)... and was going super slow so took pictures of MORE of the lovely flowers on the side of the road!  LOVE it!!    They are everywhere and I'm a big fan of them :)

 I hope they make you smile as much as I do!  I love seeing them everywhere as they are and always have been my favorite flowers.


Beautiful sunbeams near and far on the ride home... just an overall pretty day!! 

So... what did I buy from the online yard sale?  These lovely curtains.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the room is still a mess, but I really like the curtains.  they aren't the cream background I thought they were... they are more yellow, but I still like them.  I have SIX panels of this... not sure I need all six... so will probably sell the other two.. or see if they will go well in the guest room or not. 

I'm also tying out some new tension rods in there as well to see if I like the way they work with the doors.  We shall see if I can get the door OPEN with it up.  Time will tell on that one.  Until then I do like the pattern!!

Weekend warriors

This weekend was a day to hang the items we had purchased at Ikea.  This is actually a kitchen item from Ikea... so we have chosen to make it an outdoor kitchen item :)

Part of our goal this weekend was to go to see an electric mower that I had found on the online garage sale site.  It will work just fine so for a fraction of hte cost of a new one, we are now the proud owners of a small electric mower.  Now mind you our yard is so tiny that Butch said he cold mow the yard in 20 minutes or less with that tiny 24" mowing deck - if it's even that!  it's super tiny !

 Just above the little mower is a nice hanger we picked up at Obi (similar to Lowes).  Works well for the tools we have in there.

 AND although not bought this weekend, but on Friday... or was that Thursday night - here are the cube setups we have for the TV stand now!  They didn't have them in wood, just black or white.  I guess black works well enough, yes?

HERE is the next thing to put together.  TWO big heavy boxes that are a wardrobe that needs to be dragged (OK, nicely carried) to the basement to be put together down there... to store all our off season clothing... or here's an idea, we simply clean out our closets and downsize our clothing selection?  hum.. yeah, no.... not going to happen :)

Slowly coming together.... slowly coming together!!!