Our ferry from Greece to Italy was on time, so we were able to get the new tyres fitted on our van without delay. While that was being taken care of, we gave the dogs an extra leg stretch.
New tyres going on our van
Jerry enjoying a walk
Mirsa, very attentive
A night at the A3Passi hotel
We spent the night in Ancona, at one of our very favourite places, the A3Passi Agriturismo Hotel. The hotel is actually closed until the end of January, but when we asked for a room, we were welcomed like old friends. The weather was extraordinary — very cold, with large hailstones falling all around us.
Antonio from A3Passi. He told us that his olive trees need 20 days of very low temperatures a year to produce the best olives.
Not a flying machine, but Antonio’s whizzy new olive-gathering machine. The centre mechanism grips the base of the olive tree, then vibrates to shake the olives out of the tree. At the same time, the green wings spread out around the tree to catch the falling olives. A3Passi has extensive olive groves, so they have to work quickly, and this new machine will help.
The welcoming sight, and scent, of rosemary
Come rain or shine, vegetables are picked every day in the fields at A3Passi. Even hailstorms 3mm in diameter didn’t stop the work. People drive from miles around to buy veggies here, and A3Passi also supplies local hotels and restaurants. We were treated to a carrier bag of fennel, cauliflower and an interesting cabbage-cum-lettuce, which can be briefly cooked or used in salads.
Morning walks
There are lots of lovely dog-walking opportunities at A3Passi.
Calle raring to go, showing her stunning eyes
Calle got caught in the hail, but didn’t seem to mind in the slightest
Courier M with Djibril (and his ball!)
Don’t think he’s going to put the ball down anytime soon!
Bonnie never stops smiling. She takes great pleasure in the people around her, and her tail just wags and wags.
If you stop to look at something, Bonnie stops to look too. Do remember, if you can help to find Bonnie her forever home, please email Wendy Loytier or lesvosstraydogcatadoptions@gmail.com
Blacky was a shy girl at first, but with plenty of TLC from courier M, she’s starting to come out of her shell
Gentle giant Mirsa — she’d love to play with all the other dogs, and with Hooper too!
Hooper, so alert and curious, watching as the dogs come and go on their walks, and courier J cleans out the bedrooms
What fun and beautiful photos taken. How nice to be in Ancona.
Ancona (and the A3Passi) is certainly becoming one of our very favourite places.
Please tell Bonnie that Daisy, Barney, Zeus and Bella can’t wait to welcome her to England. Enjoy the last days of your trip and thank you so much Animal Couriers for all you are doing for us mad dog people. ( Well you are that yourselves – so needs no explanation – just huge thank yous! xxx )
Hi Wendy, everything is sounding very exciting on the Bonnie front! Do let us know when you have confirmation of her forever home! Takes a mad dog person to know one 😀
Happy photos again……..and what a WONDERFUL place that is to allow you all to stay with them even when they’re officially “closed” for the season! On top of that all fresh veg? Totally cool people……….the hail looks to be at the “painful” size – yet the harvesting goes on. Still hoping to hear that someone knows of a home for Bonnie ASAP!
Hugs, Pam and Sam
Really wonderful to be accommodated in out of season times! If they couldn’t feed us in the restaurant, they sure spoiled us with the veg 🙂 Oh yes, nothing can stop the olive harvest.
Don’t want to tempt fate, but as Wendy mentions in a comment below, it’s very possible that Bonnie might have found ‘the dream home of dream homes’. We’ll update everyone when we have confirmation 😀
That looks like an excellent place to stay. You have a cargo of handsome animals this trip.
It’s an excellent place to stay, especially as we theoretically shouldn’t have been allowed to stay. Friends on the road are friends indeed.
Beautiful passengers, as always! Hooper has the rocky grey stripes on his head, just like our Three Sisters cats!
The olives needing a good cold 20 days to produce fruit was an interesting bit of information. We are very borderline here for olives to survive at our elevation in the Cascade foothills. We tried one year to start a couple of trees, and they didn’t make it. I may try again with another variety that will hopefully work better in our climate. Olives and rosemary – I’m getting hungry…
Hooper did rather steal the show! We too were interested to hear that they need those 20 cold days. Good luck with the olives — what variety are you going to try?
Arbequina was the one I had in mind. We are at 800 feet in the Cascade foothills, so ones that do well in pots and are still highly productive might work here. The site oregonolivetrees.com has a lot of useful information, including all the experiments they tried – what worked and what didn’t.
I’m saying a prayer for little Bonnie to find a good home…
Lavinia – Thank you – Your prayers might have been answered. Think Bonnie might actually have found the dream home of dream homes. Hopefully will know for definite very soon.
Ooh, everyone is crossing their fingers!
seems Djibril is the cousin of Bert and Zaphod with his ball-addiction? I can’t wait till we will get the first olives from our tree… at least we still have that very low temperatures now… that’s a good sign to get some olives next year :o)
Djibril most certainly could be a cousin – he is major league addicted to balls! Seems like you’ve had quite a few cold days – here’s too a bumper crop 😀
Oh my, I wish I could ride with Animal Couriers around Europe – I think their passengers are treated super-deluxe – and that’s the way I see myself traveling!! Safe travels to all…
Sheila, it would be a pleasure to show you the scenes — not sure you’d find our compartments quite human sized though 😉
Finger’s crossed for positive update on Bonnie. Such a pretty girl. Every time I see Djibril with that ball, my heart melts. Safe travels!
Things are very much looking on the up for Bonnie – we hope to be able to update everyone when we’ve had final confirmation 😀 Djibril makes us laugh each time too!
Great portraits, but then you subjects are so photogenic. My favorite, really hard to choose, but I would go for Djibril with his red ball for contrast. And really nice of the closed hotel to put you up. No wonder it is a favorite. –Curt
He he – it is lucky we have such photogenic subjects, we need all the help we can get. Yup, that photo of Djibril is fab, for some reason we ended up with rather a few 😉
Beautiful photos and sure does sound like much fun! Have a wonderful Tuesday.
Thanks Karin, hope your Wednesday is fine!
That looks like a great place to stay. It was nice of them to take you when they’re closed – they probaby enjoy your visits!
Yes Clowie – they probably wonder what on earth we’re going to turn up with next 😉
omg that Jerry is a cutie pie. Safe travels all.
Wow, This post was fascinating to us. Mom eats olives…a lot of them. She’ll be getting fat very soon! I digress. We found the olive gathering amazing with this new machine.
Thanks for such an enjoyable and educational post.
Nose Rubs,
Shoko and Kali
and just at the end, the prize. A photo of a pretty kitty! jk
WordPress informed me I was not following you. How is that even possible?