Northern Italy's Wine Country

Prosecco, Soave, Bardolino, Valpolicella & Beyond

By: Marissa Fabris

Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla

The Veneto region offers travelers all manner of adventures. This audiobook focuses on exploring the Veneto's wine zones while highlighting cultural adventures, sports adventures, adventures for the soul, family adventures, driving adventures, and many other types of activities to help you discover more about the land. Writers, painters, historians, and philosophers have long been inspired by the dramatic landscapes of the Veneto Region and, by translating astute observations on canvas or in print, have captured the beauty of a land and a people that have evolved over many centuries.

Situated in Italy's northernmost zone, few other regions boast such diverse landscapes. From the low sandy coastline where the Veneto meets the Adriatic Sea, to the mighty Alpine peaks, rolling hills, thermal springs, and lagoon systems, the varied landscape makes for lively getaways any season of the year. Veneto, a name that derives from Veneti, a pre-Roman people who once inhabited the area, is divided into seven provinces: Belluno, Padua, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, and Vicenza. During Venice's golden age, aristocrats brought their wealth to the Veneto countryside and commissioned architects to build agricultural estates and country homes.

Today, more than 4,000 villas remind us of that period, the most famous of which were designed by 16th century architect Andrea Palladio. This guide tells you about the wine-growing regions, especially: the Euganean Hills, Prosecco, Soave, Cistoza, Bardolino, Valpolicella, Bassano del Grappa - how to visit the vineyards, taste the wines, trying the best restaurants, and the best places to stay in each region. All of the details you need to know are here so your trip will be unforgettable.

©2012 Hunter Publishing, Inc (P)2014 Hunter Publishing, Inc

This book is not meant for audio listening

My expectation was that this book would present a traveler's tour of the region from a descriptive standpoint. There is some of that, but much less than the reeling off of websites and phone numbers, which the narrator then repeats, and spells out! It is akin to listening to someone reading the phone book! There are short descriptive parts and then - oh no! - the narrator launches into all the contact info - websites, hours, phone numbers - and then repeats and spells out. So then one fast forwards and voila! - one completely loses a sense for the book. I would think that a pdf ould have been included that lists out all this address/contact info under the name of the entity or attraction. Even the winery infomation - it was cursory with hours and contact info. A disappointment. Had to stop listening after the first 90 minutes, couldn't bear to hear the narrator launch into 'www.' again. Wrong format, or merely presented in such a way were the contact info got in the way of anything beneficial.

Got wine?

I made it half way through without hearing anything about wine. This is more like an outdated travel guide including a loooong list of airline choices, how to dress, a looooong list of different accommodations. NOTHING about Italian wines. I finally became frustrated enough to recognize that my time would be better spent on this review than slogging through to the end of this book.