We say good bye to Veranna today and head out on the first leg of our bus tour. It was amazing to see Mauro, our driver, navigate these tiny roads with what turns out to be a very comfortable bus. We headed out quite early after breakfast for the trip to the Dolmites. A couple of hours in we made a bathroom stop at an AutoStratta which is sort of like a truck stop but not really.

After a very tasty breakfast at the hotel, we headed out for a morning of exploring the neighboring towns via the ferry. The weather cleared up for us after a mostly rainy day yesterday. The temperature was about 25 degrees C. Our first stop was Belagio (yes this is a real place and not just an over the top casino in Nevada :-). It’s bigger than Varenna. We did a bit of window shopping and just wandered about.

We meet our tour group at 5:00 at Hotel Villa Cipressi so we have the day to explore. We woke up to a bit of an overcast and rainy day but the view from our hotel room was spectacular. After breakfast and checking out of the Hotel Eremo Gaudio, we headed back towards the main square in Varenna to check into the tour hotel. It’s a very charming place. The fellow that checked us in was very helpful and explained that our room (which is in the older part of the hotel) was recently fixed up.

Well we made it to Varenna. It was a long day of traveling to get here but here we are. The trip was pretty uneventful. We flew from Calgary to London (Heathrow) on Air Canada. Not my first choice for Airlines but we bought the tickets on my Aeroplan points so it is what it is. We did get the a row behind one of the galleys so there was lots of leg room which was great.

Deanna and I are off on what we hope will be a trip of a lifetime. Italy and France for six weeks. This is a trip that we’ve been planning and saving up for for five years. It’s hard to believe that it’s here. We started talking about the trip about a year ago and decided to do an organized tour in Italy and then spend the balance of the trip on our own in France.

For our trip I decided to buy an iPad and a small digital camera. We’re going to be away for six weeks and the thought of hauling around my 17&8243; Mac Book Pro and six or seven pounds of camera gear is not that appealing. I have a bunch of Apple gear, so the iPad was a no brainer. I’ve had it for a few weeks now and am very happy with it should be great device for traveling.

Winter this year seemed to go on forever so we decided (well Deanna mostly) it was time for a vacation someplace warm. We’ve never traveled to an all inclusive resort before but after finding a good deal we were off to Grand Palladium Kantenah on the Mayan Riviera. We booked our trip through Transat Holidays and were very impressed. Flights were on time. Airplanes were comfortable (ish). Transportation from the airport to the resort and back again, all organized and very well executed.