Category Archives: Wine

A few days in the Coonawarra – getting there

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Our daughter’s involvement in a wedding in the South East of South Australia and our offer to look after her children while she and her husband were at the wedding and surrounding events gave us just the excuse to visit The Coonawarra, one of Australia’s most famous wine regions. In my case, it had been about a decade since I had visited and, for my favourite person, much longer.

The Coonawarra is about 400kms from Adelaide, making it about a 4 hour 30 trip assuming a short break somewhere like Tintinarra or Keith.

Tintinara

The road to Keith is well travelled as it’s the main highway to Melbourne, and just short of Keith, there is a turn-off for the Riddoch Highway that took us through Padthaway past Naracoorte and onto our destination of Penola in the heart of The Coonawarra.

The Coonawarra is a designated wine region that was hard fought for in the late 1990s, finally getting its own designation in 2003 as part of the Limestone Coast Region. There are just over 20 wineries in the region. It is a mix of the big corporates such as Penfolds, Treasury (owner of Wynns) and large family wine companies such as Casella (owner of Brands Laira) and Yalumba, along with smaller concerns such as Whistle Stop and Raidis.

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The Barossa Valley

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Dusk in the Barossa Valley

With all the panic about Coronavirus we were glad we decided not to venture far for our 40th Wedding Anniversary. While we still have wonderful memories of the awesome Grand Tour we had embarked upon for our 30th Wedding Anniversary, ten years on we were much less adventurous.

Rather than travelling thousands of kilometres to the other side of the world we travelled less than 100 kms for a lavish few days in the nearby Barossa Valley.

The Barossa Valley just an 80 minute drive for Adelaide is probably Australia’s best known wine region.

We decided to stay at The Louise, a luxury resort for two nights. The resort is nestled in the vineyards and has about 40 rooms. We stayed in the mid-priced (still quite pricey) room. The views over the vineyards from our room and the restaurant were delightful.

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Montefalco, Umbria – A wine tour

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Umbria is often referred to as the green heart of Italy.

The view across the Umbrian valley from Assisi with its patchwork of fields confirmed this. Umbria has a reputation for its food, wine and olive oil; all of which we can confirm from our stay in Assisi.

Our days in Assisi, a medieval town that looks across the valley, had enabled us to sample the wines. Montefalco Sagrantino and Montefalco Rosso were becoming favourites.

We visited a local wine bar, Bibenda, that had a reputation not just for the wines but also for its sommelier owner who has a truly extensive knowledge about the region.

We’d seen in a “things to do” post from Airbnb about a “new experience”, being a wine tour of a Montefalco winery and decided to see if we could make it work without a car.

Who wants to drive if you are doing some wine tasting? Continue reading →

The Diary of a Slow Traveller – A roadtrip to Renmark

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The Riverland in South Australia brings back wonderful childhood memories for me. As my father was brought up on the River (The River Murray), it was a regular location for short family holidays in my childhood. So when the opportunity came to combine some data collection for my PhD research with a visit to Renmark, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Renmark is about 250kms or 3 hours from Adelaide. It’s a straight forward drive but on a road that has been notorious for crashes, no doubt because it’s a long and straight piece of road.

We left mid Sunday morning so we could visit a winery or two in the afternoon before having a dinner at the Renmark Hotel.

As we drove up My Favourite Person and I reminisced about the numerous road trips we’d done as kids. My Favorite Person has a very different view of road trips – I love them and she doesn’t!

Her reasons are sound, regular trips to Brisbane where her father made a beeline, stopping for nothing. For me it was quite different, I loved our trips.

A trip through Australia even if you don’t go into the outback is something quite special. The terrain changes quickly and the distances are large. On this trip we opted for the Sturt Highway rather than up the South Eastern Freeway and through Murray Bridge, the bumpy but quiet Karoonda Road through to Loxton and then the Sturt Highway to Renmark. The Sturt Highway is joined from Port Wakefield Road and is pretty much a straight trip, skirting the Barossa Valley and then hitting The River at Blanchtown and then over the Kingston Bridge, either taking the Sturt Highway bypass onto Renmark or going on the old road through Cobby (Cobdogla) and Berri where my father lived as a child, the son of a soldier settler and onto Renmark.

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Out and about in Rome – Frascati

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Villa

Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati

Continuing with a desire to expand our horizons away from the heart of The Eternal City we decided to “Do as the Romans Do” and go to Frascati for the day, or more particularly for lunch.

Frascati is a small town located about 30 minutes by train from Rome. It is a favourite amongst the inhabitants of Rome to get away from the heat in summer or for an evening meal. Judging by the number of teenagers that shared our train ride it’s also a favourite place to get away from your parents on a Saturday afternoon.

After a late breakfast we caught the metro to Rome Termani and decided to walk around the up and coming Monti district which is located near the station.

Making us acutely aware of how much the world had changed in recent months each metro station had members of the army inside with hands on their machine guns. I’m pretty sure that they are not there to stop fare evaders!

imageMonti was once a poor area but is now quite trendy. Just the place for people like us. There are new modern bars and coffee shops and for the first time in months we saw food that was not just Italian . I saw a coupe fo Indian Restaurants and had instant cravings! Monti is also home to sone very trendy boutiques that immediately caught my favourite person’s eye as well as my daughter’s back in Australia with the benefit of WhatsApp.

There was lots of browsing in the boutiques but no purchasing. Continue reading →