Hello everyone back home!
It is with a heavy heart that I must report that today is our last official day in Italy, I think the group would agree that there isn't a better place on earth to end our program than Sorrento.
After leaving Rome on Thursday we travelled south to Sorrento. As we have on all of our travel days, we stopped en route at a phenomenal winery called Marisa Cuomo (http://www.marisacuomo.com), the winery was recommended to GHT by a very knowledgeable wine importer in the Toronto area. Though we arrived in the 'area' of the town, we had to climb/weave through the mountain roads to reach the winery that stood at the very top of a mountain. We were greeted by our guide, Dorotea, who was actually the daughter of THE Marisa Cuomo. She walked us through and explained their wines and their wine making process and somewhere in the middle of the tour, she nonchalantly mentioned that they won the Gold Cup at the California Wine festival last year. Following our tour we sat and enjoyed an amazing assortment of 'finger foods' while over looking the coast.
Once our tour was complete we travelled back down the mountain road to our hotel, The Grand Hotel Europa Palace (http://www.europapalace.com/) where we settled in and have made it our home for the past three days.
Yesterday there was an optional excursion to a cheese farm, 12 of us participated and enjoyed a walk around the grounds followed by a cheese demonstration and 'some' lunch. I will leave out the details as to what happened before the program - please feel free to ask those that went what happened :-)
Today was a completely free day for the group and the majority of the participants ventured over to Capri to visit either the Blue Grotto or to visit the town of Capri. Others stayed back and hung out by the pool while some visited Positano.
Tomorrow morning we will depart for Rome around 8am to catch our 3:10 flight.
A note to the participants:
I sincerely hope that everyone on this program will look back and remember their time in Italy this short little while with fond and positive memories. I hope that the last 11 days has set a solid platform for this wonderful country so that one day you may return with friends and loved ones and bring them to the hotels/restaurants/wineries/farms/autogrills that we have visited and reminisce of the memories we made, the people we met and the food and vino we consumed.
It has been an absolute pleasure and joy to of been able to rediscover Italy again with you. Thank you for being patient, kind, positive, easy going and full of life.
Ci vediamo presto!
Baci,
Natalie
