Day 4 Continued, Cardiff Castle

This is a cut and paste of the itinerary:  Our Itinerary reads: Explore Bath, a city of elegant Georgian buildings in a distinctive golden stone.  Tour the wonderfully preserved Roman Baths.  Head to Cardiff, where you'll take a sightseeing tour of the city before touring Cardiff Castle, a medieval castle fabulously renovated in Victorian Gothic style.  Dine in your hotel this evening.  So, we are inside Cardiff Castle.

The ceilings were gorgeous.

One of the walls in the nursery.

Cardiff Castle is one of Wales leading heritage attractions.  From the Roman occupation, to the Norman Conquest, through Civil War, The Victorian transformation and the terrors of WWII, there are 2,000 years of history in the castle right in the heart of the city.

Picture after picture.  There's so much to see on every wall, on every ceiling you hardly can take it all in.

Murals and symbols throughout the castle.

Even the rooftop area was gorgeous.

The Bute family left their mark transforming the house into the opulent Victorian Gothic Home it is today.

After departing Cardiff Castle, we headed Mercure Hotel, were we lodged just for 1 night.

Once again we were super rushed to check in, get out luggage and change for dinner, so no time to take our own pictures of the hotel, so these are from the hotel's webpage.

In the morning we'll head north from Cardiff.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Day 4, Continued Fattoria Dianella and Montecatini

You saw Ern and I just as we were observing the pretty hillside view of the vineyard in the previous post.  This was our Dine at Home experience.  Which means a local invites you to dine in the home...in this case her Mediciean villa.  Veronica welcomed us and told us a bit about her family, and the vineyard.

We had a tour where a member of her staff explained the process of making wine.

The types of grapes they use: Sangiovese, Colorino, Vermentino, Malvasia, and Sabernet Sauvignon.

Then we settled in to do some wine tasting and have a delicious meal, that seemed like it would never end.  One course after another paired with appropriate wines.  Fantastic meal, and lots of fun.

 Lots of folks having a good time.

In a beautiful setting, with good food and wine.

This group was paying attention!  This was an included item in our tour, not an optional pay extra item.

Can't take credit for this lovely photo, it's from their website.  We walked around outside for a few minutes, while some were in the wine cellar (yippee my hubby Ernie was) buying wine.

Wonderful photo of Veronica and her husband Francesco.  Also from their website.  Please take time and visit their page.  It's a B & B.  You can stay there, you can go taste wine, you take cooking classes there, and you can buy wine!!

This is me...excited as our case of wine from Dianella winery arrived yesterday!  We opened one last night at dinner.  Naturally we were having a pasta dinner!