Elena and Federico at the Avalanche game

While Elena and her fiance, Federico, have traveled to many exotic and adventurous locales, one place they had not yet visited was Denver! Normally you can find them diving in the Maldives or exploring Egypt or Mexico during their winter vacation. So Denver was a little bit different…in February! Especially for non-skiers. But we do have the sun and the cobalt blue skies year round!

Some of the highlights were attending a Colorado Avalanche and a Denver Nuggets game. We visited LoDo, Larimer Square,

Elena and Fede at Sushi Den

Cherry Creek, ate at Sushi Den, visited Balistreri Vineyards, went to Boulder and of course went to all the fun places  to shop in Denver. We had a really wonderful party  at our house with lots of fun people attending, many of them past Dream Italia travelers whom Elena hadn’t seen in some years. We celebrated both Federico’s and Elena’s birthdays here.

Elena and Fede in Napa

We also went to San Francisco, Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley. Believe it or not, the weather was warmer in Denver than the week we went to California. We toured some vineyards and Elena and Fede had fun seeing the differences in the California vineyards and those in Tuscany. We ate at Chez Panisse while visiting friends in Berkeley, and also visited firiends in the city.

All in all we had so much fun and decided it would be a good idea to also bring Italian people to tour the American West in addition to taking Americans to Italy. We’ll be putting our heads together and exploring those ideas!