This was our last official day in Rome. We woke up bright and early the next morning and started the long journey home.
The Santa Benedetta Winery is about 30 minutes outside of Rome. It is family owned/operated and they produce wines (mainly white) and olive oil. Our adventures here included a cooking class and "wine drinking" (not tasting, drinking). It was a perfect to way to end our trip to Italy!
Grapevines!
The set-up for our outdoor cooking class.
The wine tasting area.
Grapevines and olive trees.
Another view of the vineyard.
Will checking out the olive tree.
Will and me.
Grapes!
Time to cook. We made pasta and some kind of hard cookie that was served with our dessert. Pasta is just flour and eggs ... mix with a fork. Oh yeah, and drink lots of bubbly, sweet wine while you mix!
Ball of dough ... roll out and cut into pasta.
Will got a little aggressive with the dough.
I got the big rolling pin. Oh yeah, slap some flour on your face too. (The too little ladies who are cooks at the winery took care of that.)
Noodles!
Time to make some more yummy Italian goodness. (The guy in the sunglasses' family owns the winery. He was our host for the day.)
Yum!
This lady was a hoot! She is making the cookie dough here I think.
Cookies!
One of our servers.
Still working on cookies!
Time to drink some wine.
Beautiful whites.
Best plate of food I ate the whole trip. (I didn't eat half of this.) We were able to choose from a huge table full of these yummy appetizers.
Then we moved inside for lunch ... and more wine.
Will and me. (Our complimentary professional photo.)
Cooking together.
After lunch, we came back to our hotel and CRASHED. Then we got ready for the fancy, formal farewell dinner hosted by Will's company. We were greeted by this fanfare.
We clean up pretty nice! (We had to wear name tags to all of his work events.)
Our view of the city from the private villa where the party was located.
One shot of our view. See St. Peter's dome?
Another shot of the view. If you look in the far left corner, you can see the Colosseum and the white "Wedding Cake" building.
Here is the private villa was held. We had cocktails and appetizers on the lawn and enjoyed the awesome view.
We also had live entertainment, including a string trio and ...
a lively color guard performance.
Stan Verrett (an ESPN news anchor) was on the trip with us. (His girlfriend works for Will's company and brought him along as her +1.) Will enjoyed having someone to talk sports with!
Another view of the city at sunset.
We moved inside the villa for dinner. Our beautiful place setting.
Will and me at dinner.
Another great shot of us in front of the beautiful view of Rome!
After the festivities, we headed back to our hotel, packed our bags and went to bed. We had a 5AM wake-up call the next morning and a full day of travel ahead. Back to reality!
Will worked very hard to earned this trip and God truly did bless he business! I think he knew this tired momma needed a kid-free vacation to somewhere spectacular. This really was a trip of a lifetime and I am so thankful we were able to go.
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