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Ken Mussato Italian Vacation

Gratzie mille… thanks a million to Dowco for giving me a chance to visit my ancestral homeland last year. After 30 years of service at Dowco, Hugh and Susan sent me and my sweetie, Sheree to Italy on a trip of a lifetime.  Hugh thought I would just make a quick fly over, see the pope and leave but, we had to see it all.

 After studying maps, tour packages, villas and finding out where my father’s family lived, we put together a 2 week itinerary we thought we could live with. What a trip it was!

 We started with a day and a half in Rome, then took the high speed train to Venice. Stayed there for 3 days and had a chance to visit my cousins, on the same farm where my dad was born. Wow, what a feeling that was!  After 3 day in Venice, we drove to our villa, just south of Florence. It was a stone building and reminded Sheree of Dracula’s castle.  Apparently it was built by a cardinal hundreds of years ago and is still in the family.  From here we took day trips in every different direction. Arezzo, Florence, Monte San Savino, Cortena, Pisa, Viareggio and more.

 Since most restaurants were closed until 8:30 or 9, we ended up cooking in our villa…something we didn’t mind at all. We had wonderful meals and some equally wonderful wine. By the way, you need to put on vinyl gloves when picking up veggies at the markets.

Of course, driving in Italy is an experience.  The autostrade is great but the signs are almost invisible.  You need a sixth sense to get anywhere.  Signs are small and appear just as you need to make the turn.  We drove around Florence airport 3 times before we found how to get in…. almost missed the plane!

We were having a wonderful time but it was a bit hectic with all the driving and we needed a break. We elected to spend our last day in Italy, just relaxing around the pool at the villa with some wine, prosciutto and cheese, and later on, enjoy our final meal at dinner.  It was not to be.   That morning as I was brewing our coffee, I checked our tickets.  Lucky I did… we needed to be in the airport in 3 hours!  I still can’t explain how I lost a day.

Unfortunately, we left some good food and wine behind, but we did manage to take home some great memories.