Our new guide Ricardo (AKA Rick) picked 6 of us up at our hotel to start our 6 day post trip to Amalfi. The first thing we did on the bus was to text Nino that Rick was “easy on the eyes.” We were off to Venosa,a place that started out as a Roman colony in 290 BC.

There are two churches on the site. One is called the Unfinished Church and the other the Abbey of the Holy Trinity. They both looked unfinished to me.

Next on to a walking tour of the delightful town of Venosa where we even met the mayor. A complete stranger came up to Teri and asked her if she was from the US. He was an ex-pat from Massachusetts who was living here with his wife. He was very happy to speak to someone who spoke English.

Now it was off to another winery called Manfredi. This is my new favorite wine. 9 Euros at the winery. $31 in the US.

So we are going thru the tour of the winery which is more traditional than the one we went to in Trani. Our guide was talking about the man who makes the blends and said he was from Napa and moved there because his wife is from Venosa. So this man comes in where we were having lunch and at the time we were tasting the white wine. He says that the wine is a blend of gewurztraminer grapes and something else. I immediately perked up because Gewurztraminer wine is one of my favorites. The man is standing next to me and I said that I was from the Finger Lakes region of New York and that wine is one of my favorites. He tells me that the grapes that you grow there are much sweeter than the ones we grow here and asked if I could tell the difference. I agreed but in reality all I knew was I loved this wine. Can you imagine that I meet someone in the middle of no where in Italy and they knew about Finger Lakes grapes!

Off to our new home on the Amalfi Coast for the next 3 nights in the town of Maiori. Gorgeous views from my room and the ability to open the huge widows and fall asleep to the waves and off course the fireworks that go off every night.

Tomorrow is a tour of the village of Amalfi along with a boat trip up the coast and of course we hope, shopping.