Conegliano and Setting Sail October 22

First morning on the boat. You can have your breakfast delivered directly to your room in the morning and I used that instead of a wake up call every morning. That way I could have my breakfast in bed in my pjs before I had to get dressed and ready to go. My first excursion is the Conegliano Slow Food Wine and Cheese Tour. I had to be up early so I could meet my group at 7:15. Our tour guide was the very lovely Sabina. There were only seven of us on the tour, so we all got pretty chummy by the time the day was over.


Conegliano is located about an hour north of Venice. Our first stop was Latteria Perenzin. It is a family owned cheese maker who was extremely cute. We toured the factory where they make the cheese.











This is the storage room where they age the cheese. There are some cheeses that have been in this room for years.











These cheeses were wrapped in a variety of things including hay, walnut leaves (Affinati di capra), and wine (Ciock or ubriacato, drunken cheese).







This is the fresh Castel cheese which is a medieval recipe. All the milk they use to make there cheeses are from local dairy farms and the milk is selected based on the diet of the cows.










This was my favorite part, of course. We got to taste all the primary cheeses they make and we were given an extra special treat. There is a cheese that is aged 5 years that is so valuable they don't sell it. It is for family use only. He allowed us to try it. It was a very nice hard cheese, almost like a parmesan. I also discovered my new favorite wine. Prosecco is a very light white sparking wine and is a staple of the region. In fact, I found it on wine.com and plan on ordering a case of it.

I was puzzled how they can manage to keep cheese for so many years without it going bad, when I can't manage to keep a block of cheddar in my fridge for a week without it getting moldy.


From the cheese maker, we went into downtown Conegliano which sits below the Conegliano Castle. We stopped for lattes in this nice plaza.










You can still see some of the faint frescos on the buildings. We went to the cathedral afterwards. The clock workings were temporarily taken out and on display in front.









Inside the cathedral is a beautiful painting done by the artist Da Conegliano which was done in the 14th century but recently restored. They believe that the character on the left in the painting is actually the artists self portrait.








And now for my favorite part of the day. We were taken to Cecchetto which is a wine farm. It is one of the best in Italy and they are famous for their Roboso grapes. This photo is of the owner who was helping a student from the local university who was doing research on his grapes.










His farm was very pretty. We were allowed to sample grapes right off the vine.
Inside are the huge wine casts where the wine is stored and aged.







Once the wine has been pressed, the grape skins are kept and used to make Grapa. The silver tanks allow them to ensure the wine is kept at the correct temperature at all times.










This was my initial order of wine. I had to scale it down a bit when I was told I could only take two bottles back on the boat with me.










Some of the older barrels have been used in the family for generations and special barrels were decorated to commemerate events. The folks involved would sign the barrels. And some of the barrels were painted such as this one that shows a fall pig slaughter.










I wanted to tuck this barrel under my arms and take it home, but it weighs a ton!











These grapes are actually being aged. They are picked and set out for 40 days. This makes them sweeter and the wine they make from it is a wonderful dessert wine. It was a little too sweet for me, but it was very cool to taste the aged grape and then see the wine that comes from it.




Once we toured the farm and factory, they served us a typical lunch for the area. It started with prosecco, bread and cheese. Then we got to sample three different wines while they served pasta fagioli (pasta with beans). We were scolded for not holding our wine glasses correctly. This guy was a lover of wine. I asked him how much wine he drinks a day. His answer ONLY 12 glasses or so. I wanted him to adopt me. For dessert we tasted the sweet wine with some pastries. I bought a couple of bottles and we hoped on the bus again.

I don't have any photos for the next stop because my batteries ran out but we went to Treviso. while here we had a typical afternoon snack of grapa, prosecco (I love this area!) and a variety of local food (stuffed octopus, marinated sardines).

It was sad saying goodbye to Sabina and it was truely a fabulous day. Back on board I settled in with my savories (delivered each evening to my room) and took some pictures of Venice from my balcony.





















We set sail at 4pm and we got to take pictures of venice as we traveled up and grand canal.










Tonight I got to meet the folks who I will be dining with for the cruise and then I found the casino. Yeeeeehaaaaa!