Greetings!

My inaugural blog post…how exciting!  These days I am feeling both excited and a tad nervous as is in just over one week we will be embarking on our epic trip to Patagonia (Argentina and Chile)!

This time last year,Jody and I were just returning from our trip to Italy.  It was Jody’s first trip to Europe and my first trip back in nearly 20 years! It was an amazing adventure and led us to book our next trip with some of the same travel companions :-).

In Italy, we spent the first week in the Peidmonte region and stayed in a lovely farmhouse Air BnB.  We were treated to amazing breakfasts on the terrace, surrounded by vineyards and farmland.  From there we travelled around visiting Lake Maggiore, Cinque Terre, Aqua Terme, even went on a harrowing drive to Torino to find the Shroud of Turin, and finally took part in the  memorable Alba wine festival.

From there we drove to Venice (yes drove…. Jody was a rock star driver in Italy!) and spent a night before connecting with our Exodus Tour which took us to the Dolomite region.  We were treated to staying in the lovely Hotel Adler in Vilabassa, Italy; this trip brought back so many fond memories of time I spent in Germany and Europe as a child.

The Dolomite region is very close the Austrian border and was prior to WWI was Austrian territory, thus, to this day it maintains a very Austrian flavour (architecture, food, language).  We were guided on our hikes by Exodus Rep Alex and hiked 6/7 days, experiencing some pretty amazing terrain, elevation and views; then each night we returned to the Hotel Adler to be treated to 5 course meals!

Thankfully the daily physical activity helped me continue to fit through the “strudel checker” (which was what our guide called the the cattle turnstiles between pastures we walked through :-)).

We returned to Venice for 2 nights, walked the city, ate thin crust pizza next to canals, took in the architecture and savoured the cheap wine before returning to reality.  My memories of the trip to Italy are so vivid and special.

I look forward to creating some more memories and experiences in Patagonia.  Now if I could just get the packing thing figured out!