My friend will be 60 in November. He dislikes France but has learned to like Italy. He has bought himself a short week somewhere in Genoa for a photography course. His interests are civil engineering projects, Italian wine, walking, food (to an extent), gardens and the odd museum. He has invited his wife, me and Mrs Bilbo to join him for the following week/10days. Generally, we have similar interests but we like to be warm or at least not frozen.

My thoughts so far might be staying in Savona or Imperia and do train journeys to Turin, various gardens, a warming spa and possibly a wine festival.

I'm looking for bright ideas as to possible bases, the country is not rejected as opposed to the town and we could even look at the CT (though walking might be out of the question due to the weather). I'd also like ideas about things to do, places to be etc. Are there group train tickets or 7 day tickets that avoid the "easy" solution of using the car as at least one of us gets badly car sick.

D'accordo, trovo questa festa di vino a Milano Milano Wine Festival | 9-11 novembre | Piazza città di Lombardia Eventi a Milano cio, e un'ora e mezzo lontano da genova di treno

E poi, questo in Torino https://gallery.mailchimp.com/050d0b...es_merged_.pdf uno vintage festival, cibo di strada, jazz e vino

qui e' una festa a Savona http://www.ilsecoloxix.it/p/eventi/2...friendly.shtml

Livorno is just into Tuscany https://www.maredivino.it/ 18 Nov

anyone?

Not quite sure what you're asking, Bilbo. "He has learned to like Italy" would send me running right from the start. I hate traveling with difficult people.

I wouldn't even consider the CT at that time of year. And what is wrong with Genoa itself?

Una festa a Savona sounds good. And there's always a good warming spa or two to be found in Italia, non e vero? And a festa di vino a Milano? What could possibly go wrong? Milan in winter is wonderful!

I don't think there are group train tickets (at least not for just 7 people), but tickets on regional trains in Italy are so very cheap it doesn't much matter. You might qualify for senior fares?

If you want the link to the absolutely gorgeous apartment we rented in Milan last December, let me know. It was palatial and less than US$100 a night and in a fabulous neighborhood.

Hi St, really just looking for off-the-wall ideas, he is that sort of guy, very good at entering into stuff, so I was mulling truffle hunting, etc and I was weighing up Liguria, Turino or Milano. The things I had found looked interesting but I think he would prefer smaller towns or maybe agriturismi.

Youngest is 55 I think.

Genoa, well I liked th old tatty historical centre but the rest left me very unimpressed. This morning I dug out Albenga and the pineapple of Sanremo.

Well, if you're contemplating SanRemo I think you're a bit desperate.

I have a very jaundiced view of truffle hunting, living as I do in the heart of truffle land in the Périgord. I don't know how it works in Italy, but here people charge a lot of money to take unsuspecting tourists out into the forests where they supposedly "find" truffles with dogs. The truffles have been planted the night before, and the dogs don't have to do anything but scratch a bit to unleash them. It's all a big game. We do have real truffle hunters and real truffle dogs, but those are carefully guarded local secrets. And it's the middle of winter, so we have real truffles RIGHT NOW, and they are delicious!

I don't have a map of Italy in front of me now, so am relying on memory, but if Genoa is the starting point, how about heading out to sea? Surely there are plenty of Italian islands where there could be plenty of off-the-wall things to do?

Islands, a possible idea, I was contemplating Elba as another idea for a summer holiday, my friend has visited Sardinia which is the other isle that comes to mind. I too have that fear that truffle hunting may be an expensive scam.

You mention spas or Terme, any good ones in the area that you know of?

On another pathway, I've never been to Turino, what excitements could await us there?

I found this https://www.liguriainfesta.com/calen...novembre-2.htm which includes wine and chestnuts