20th Annual Conference

The organisers of the 20th Annual Conference obviously attached great importance to the excursions so as to enable the participants to discover just a small proportion of the treasures of this Venice region, so blessed by the gods. The excursions were either full days or half days to enable as many people as possible to take part.
Three day-long excursions were offered as follows:
- Venice and the laguna islands
- the Riviera del Brenta and guided tours of the villa Pisani and Padua
- Vicenza: Palladio and guided tour of the Villa Rotonda.

The destinations for the half-day tours were:
- Caorle with a guided tour of the Paladin- Bosco del Merlo wine cellars
- Cavallino - vivier Azzura
- Bassano del Grappa: guided tour of the Bortolo Nardini distillery
- Conegliano: guided tour of the Carpenè Malvolti Spumante cellars and the G.B.Cerletti wine academy
- Treviso and a guided tour of the Sandi wine cellars

Everyone agreed that these excursions were a good opportunity to learn about the region and its sites and atmosphere, not forgetting the wine tastings in the famous cellars. Your journalist cannot – for the moment at least – be in more than one place at once, but he did particularly enjoy Venice, which was thronged with thousands of tourists despite the late season. He also appreciated Caorle with its quaint little fishing port and its leaning tower, as well as the Villa Sandi whose cellars produce the famous Prosecco; he also enjoyed Vicenza, classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site, where the architect Andrea Palladio designed, among other buildings, the Olympic theatre.