Sunday in Toronto/Niagara

On the Sunday of the holiday weekend, Allison and I escaped the city for part of the day, heading down to the Niagara area to do a little wine tasting.  We had fine weather for it:  mildly warm, mostly sunny.  The traffic was all going the other way it seemed, either in to the CNE activities as we headed out of Toronto or out to the Niagara area for a last gasp of summer escape as we drove back home.  We weren't too ambitious, either, opting for two wineries and a distillery.

First up:  Pearl Morissette. 

A name I know from trying their wines but also because their restaurant has an excellent reputation.  Lovely to sit in Adirondack (not Muskoka, Allison!)

chairs out on the lawn and sip a tasting flight. 

The wines were interesting.  Not entirely to my taste, all of them, but interesting.  Allison and I agreed that we each liked the rose the most, and so we each bought a bottle.  A fine start to the day.

Next:  180 Estate Winery.  Allison had never been there before, but she stumbled upon it by chance.  A nicely serendipitous choice - we liked all of the wines we tried, and - even better - we had an enjoyable lunch of a charcuterie board. 

I bought a bottle of a Cab Franc white there, wishing I could buy a little more but limited in what I could pack home.

Finally:  Dillon's Small Batch Distillers. 

Not the first time there, and Allison has gifted us with things from there as well over the years.  Allison was driving, so I was the only one of us to do the tasting.  A few gins, an amaro, a couple of other items.  I liked the variety of the gins, and I settled on one for Allison to bring in November.  I also bought the amaro for her to bring down and give to Van.

We came back into the city, and Allison dropped me off at the hotel where I took a nice little nap.  Once I was up, I got ready and walked up Yonge to Terroni to meet her, Brenda,

and Catriona.  We sat on the rooftop deck as the evening cooled off.  I had a spritz,

zucchini blossoms,

garganelli with sausage and dandelion greens,

and a butterscotch budino. 

Brenda and I walked most of the way home together, and I got a cute little reminder of Conrad, back home.

The weekend wrapped up there, aside from two flights the next day (connecting through Chicago)

that got me home in time for dinner.  What a nice, mellow day to end a long weekend on. 

a board dinner

I was almost going to talk about Tuesday dinner, but we're deeper into the week than I thought, and it's Wednesday dinner, not Tuesday.  A simple dinner at that - a board of items to graze on while we continued on Cougar Town.  But I was pleased with how I composed it.  Nice job, Peter. 

Stonington

Friday in the UP is behind us.  It's 6:45 in the morning on Saturday as I start to write this, and I'm trying not to listen to the noise of the lobby and coffee shop right around the corner from our suite.  It hasn't woken me up during our stay here, but it's a lot to have to hear early in the morning.  If only this hotel had a doorway to close between the lobby and this wing of rooms.  Oh wait, they do.  Sigh.  I've already written a bad review on TripAdvisor and will argue with Conrad if he considers staying here again.  And yes, I did talk to them about this two days ago when it first happened.  So much for customer feedback, right?

Enough of that, though, Peter (and no, I'm not naming the hotel, but if you ever come up to Conrad's hometown, ask me where NOT to stay, and I will tell you). Let's get back to yesterday.

Two days ago we had grand ambitions of a drive over to St. Ignace and the ferry to Mackinac Island.  By yesterday morning, that had downgraded significantly.  We had breakfast with Karen at a new place in town (generous portions for the most part, but my breakfast burrito was mostly potato instead of egg) (I swear, this post is not just a litany of complaints), then spent time in the room doing some paperwork things that needed to be done.  It was after 1:00 when Conrad and I finally got ourselves going for a drive.  Mackinac Island?  Nope.  The Stonington Peninsula.

Yeah, not very ambitious.  A drive to a lighthouse at Peninsula Point. 

A nice drive, mind you, and the lighthouse was a lovely little setting. 

Everything so green there.  We were able to climb up the stairs inside the lighthouse

and take in the views from there. 

Lovely.  Back in the car, we headed through the tunnel of trees to the paved road, then past fields and occasional houses.  There was something about the green space that invited, and it would have been fantastic to stroll or run through those places.  Alas, aside from most of it being private land, I can only imagine what sort of ticks a person could pick up among those tall grasses and such!

We left the Stonington Peninsula behind us and meandered through the nearby communities, admiring some of the homes and gardens that we rolled past.  We headed on into Escanaba and picked up a few things needed for a night-in in the hotel room.  Once back at the hotel, we headed to the bar for a happy hour drink.  We've been enjoying the Mammoth Gin, a Michigan brand, and for all that we have had issues with the hotel, the bar has had good service and good drinks.  Credit to them for the terrific martinis. 

It's clear from the crowds at the bar when it opens at 4:30 that flood on in that they're keeping folks happy.

We came back to the room and began our grazing for the evening.  Veggies and dip, then a nice assortment of meats and cheeses with almonds and biscuits.  A good wine to go with it. 

Re-watching season one of The Crown on Netflix.  Eventually reading with music.  Little fuss, just us having that easy time together to end our last night in the UP for this trip.  A nice day for a drive, a nice evening, and the promise of being that much closer to being home.

Italy recap: Argegno and Pigra

For a daytime expedition to two very small villages, this will be rather a long post.  No, not because of all the blah blah blah narrative I usually do.  I have a lot of photos to share in the post.  Get seated, and get ready to scroll.

I've already posted about the Lake Como ferries.  We really should have understood better just how awesome a service they are.  Comfortable, providing scenic travel, a good price.  Our first morning at Filario, we decided at breakfast that we would go somewhere that we could get to by ferry.

Figuring out the schedule took a little doing (no, really - we saw it play out many times at the ferry stops that people did not understand the schedule and sometimes had unrealistic expectations about where the ferry went and when and such), but we settled on crossing over to Argegno and just checking the place out.  Onto the ferry

across the lake,

a few stops and sights along the way,

and then we were there.

Argegno had the benefit of not quite clinging to the side of the low mountains and hills surrounding the lake. 

It was a little more than on street deep, in other words.  Not much more, but a little more.  We wandered through the small centre

and made note of a possible lunch option, then headed over to the gondola to take us up to Pigra.

Pigra is a sweet little village.  Village?  Maybe a hamlet.  Wikipedia tells me that the population in 2004 was 294.  I doubt it's grown any since then, but maybe?  There were a couple of places for tourists up there, but we simply admired the views of the lake below

(the gondola rises over 500m),

walked around the place,

and took a number of photos. 

Notable were the many images devoted to cats - it must be their theme. 

Also notable:  a little public library (we didn't go in). 

Further notable:  seemingly abandoned homes. 

On a lark, we afterwards looked up Pigra real estate, and at least one such building was available at a very low price.  Mind you, another home with outstanding views was available at a not-so-low price.  Oh, and kudos to the person with the anti-fascist sticker on their garage. 

Would that we had that perspective here!

Anyway, we came back down and headed for a late-ish lunch at Bistrò Argegno. 

It was a cool place, like a wine shop

that sold food.  The husband (we guessed) of the owner couple seemed gruff at first, but he did recommend a good wine

and brought out a platter of meats and cheeses that was so generous that we couldn't quite finish it. 

He warmed up, though, when we asked him more about the wines and for a recommendation for a bottle to bring back to sip at the hotel.  His wife was delightful, and we talked with them both about how business had been and the weather and such.  We bought a few other things at the store, including the wine (which we didn't end up sipping and brought home with us instead), and headed back to the village centre.  That was the opportunity for Van to get his gelato on Lake Como, and so we did.  I had walnut flavoured,

and I liked it far more than the intense dark double chocolate that the other two had.

Time, then, to head back across the lake!

After a day's adventure, we ventured only close by for dinner, to the Hotel Helvetia Ristorante and Pizzeria.  A negroni before me,

a shared plate of lake fish small bites,

and a simple and tasty piece of lake fish for dinner. 

Not a fancy meal, no, but everything was prepared well and hit the spot just right!

We had a few more days to go along Lake Como, and we knew - and you have seen - that we would be on those ferries again!