Dan and I spent five nights at the Vuyani Safari Lodge in South Africa with our friends in April 2022. This was our second stay at Vuyani (first back in 2015), and we had a lovely time. This is my detailed review of Vuyani for those considering it for safari! In short, I highly recommend it, but of course there are pros and cons. Keep reading for all of the information!
On safari!
If you’ve been following along, you know that Dan and I went to Italy with our immediate families over Thanksgiving in 2021. Our trip ended with 72 hours in Rome, after visiting Alba for its White Truffle Festival and Venice. Normally I would not have included Rome on a Northern Italy focused trip, but we love Rome and our last 72 hours ended up being some of the best of the trip! Here is our itinerary if you are considering a similar trip for yourself.
I love Rome!
We arrived in Rome via a 3.45 hour train ride from Venice’s Santa Lucia train station on Trenitalia’s fast Frecciarossa train. The ride was easy enough – we brought snacks and drinks and the wifi worked really well (a happy surprise!).
As you may know from this blog or chatting with me or Dan, or literally anyone in our family, our entire immediate family went to Italy for Thanksgiving in November! Yes, all 8 of us!! For the actual day of Thanksgiving, we toured the Prosecco wine region on a day trip from Venice. It was a great day, and we drank way too much tasty Prosecco! This is a recap of our tour if you are planning something similar. I highly recommend the Prosecco region as a quick getaway from Venice!
Late Fall in the Prosecco wine region.
Alba is a foodie town home to no less than 12 restaurants holding Michelin Stars in the surrounding area. Had just Dan and I visited Alba in November, we would have certainly eaten at one. However, we traveled to Alba with our entire immediate family (read about that here and here), so we had to find something a little more economical. Luckily for us, in addition to Michelian-starred restaurants, Alba has great reasonably priced restaurants, most offering seasonal white truffle menus. Here are some of our favorites.
A sample of what I’m talking about!
In 2016, Dan and I, as well as a few others, flew all the way to San Miniato for its white truffle festival! We had a blast. So much so that when we visited Italy with our family in November 2021, we added Alba to our itinerary for the sole purpose of visiting Alba’s legendary white truffle festival! For those unfamiliar, Alba is a small town in Northern Italy in the Piedmont region. Alba is located about 1 hour from Torino and 2 hours from Milan’s airport, where we flew in. Alba is a foodie town, complete with numerous Michelin starred restaurants, and its most well know for its white truffle festival – Fiera Internazionale Tartufo Bianco d’Alba. This year was the 91st festival and despite Covid, it was operating in full force. First person experiences were difficult to find online when I was planning our trip, so here is some helpful information for the truffle lovers our there.
Alba decked out for the truffle festival.
