Autumn is the perfect season to experience a short holiday: the temperate climate allows you to deep enjoy going into the open air; cities are overcrowded and there is a wide offer of food and wine events and cultural ones to attend. Otto Ducati d’Oro has already thought for you five ideas for an autumn-weekend in Verona and Mantua. Staying at our relais you could enjoy a wide range of activities: from nature, food and wine, exhibitions and events, art heritage cities and medieval villages.

1. Walking in the nature

The immense environment heritage that surrounds our relais is a real “natural gym”. Our territories offer many can’t-miss opportuinities of fun for any open-air lovers. The perfect temperatures of the middle-season are pretty good reasons to the outdoors trips before winter sets in. We thought many activities you could experience starting from the relaxing walk in the Sigurtà Garden Park, one of the most beautiful park in Europe and the adventurous walk in Molina Waterfall Park. Starting from out hotel b&b you can walk or ride a bike or a horse to the Tartaro Valley and the Pellegrin Swamp, both of them are touched by Tartaro River and they are able to offer you a pleaseant run for some miles. The valley has always been a dig site for extraction of peat and hosts many ponds of several dimensions that are the perfect habitat for reeds, birds and fishes. Many lovers of bird-watching come here to observe many exemplaries of birds including the “grey heron”. If you prefer riding a bike, Otto Ducati d’Oro lies in the ideal position to reach some of the most beautiful cycle paths in Italy. More, you will be able to reach Mantua, Verona or Garda Lake.

2. Food and wine

Our Relais lies in the heart of Isola della Scala, an area whose most soil is dedicated to the cultivation of the prestigious Vialone Nano Veronese IGP rice. In this place you could travel the route Strada del Riso among rice fields, places of faith, castles and humid oasises of international importance. You will be able to visit rice mills and learn the rice milling cycle, the importance of the springs water and the modern and ancient processing and storage methods. The typical dish of Isola della Scala is the “risotto all’isolana” you can taste into the local restaurants where you can taste many recipes with rice.

Culinary tradition surroundings isn’t made just of rice, infact, starting from first courses we suggest you to taste the famous “tortellini of Valeggio sul Mincio” and the Mantua ones based on pumpkin or on two DOP typical cheeses: “grana padano” is produced on the left river bank of Po and “parmigiano reggiano” on the right river bank. Between main courses, the tradition of Verona proposes “pastisada de caval”, a dialect term that refers a sort of horse stew. It’s a dish of very ancient origin based on horse meat, wine, vegetables and flavourings with which originally, people ate “gnocchi” cooked by the houskeepers at San Zeno ward in Verona. Another typical main cours is “lesso con la pearà”, boiled meat and “pearà” sauce whose extremely sensitive flavour becomes spicy if you add some pepper. If you are still hungry and you‘d like a dessert, we recommend you to try the weel-know “pandoro” and the typical local dessert as “sbrisolona cake”, “nadalin”, “rufoi” and romantic Juliet’s kisses.

If you do not loveonly good food but also good wine you have to know that at Valpolicella downs, in province of Verona, red wines were born as the most famous in Veneto. First of all, the “Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG” that has won in full standing one of the most prestigious steps of the podium among the great Italian red wines. Bardolino wine and white wines like Soave and Lugana are always wines in the surroundings. The wine-streets around Veneto are about 16 but and starting from our relais b&b you‘ll be able to easily reach  the "Street of Valpolicella wine", the "Street of Bardolino wine", the "Street of Custoza white wine", and the "Street of Soave wine".

3. Exhibitions, faris and events

October is a month full of several appointments and events from food and wine sector to cultural ones.

If you are a wine lover we suggest you to take part to Hostaria, the festival of the harvest that celebratesthewines in Verona. This year, the exhibition has been reaching its third edition and it will stand in Piazza Bra in Verona from 13^rd al 15^th ottobre. If you prefer the natural and sweet flavour of the honey instead of wine you don’t loose “The days of honey”, one of the most important appointment of all Europe where the best honey productions and its variuos specifities would be shown for visitors and lovers, from 6^th to 8^th October in Lazise near Garda Lake.

Do you like reading? From 30^th September to 2^nd October, Verona is transforming into a garden-library thanks to the fusion between "Librar Verona" and “Verona Mio Fiore”.

If you love the exhibitions Verona will offer you a wide choice of fairs this autumn. The Modern Art Gallery “Achille Forti” of Palazzo della Ragione in Verona will host the exhibition "Dagli ideali risorgimentali di Hayez alla forza liberatrice di Vedova" ("From the Hayez's original ideals to the Vedova's liberating force") untill December, 31^st 2017. The exhibition rout runs over more than hundred years of the Italian art history with a particular focus on the Italian Symbolism – and introducing some Vittore Grubicy de Dragon’s, Gaetano Previati’s and Plinio Nomellini’s masterpieces – and on the first decades of the XX century, particularly related to the season of Ca’ Pesaro, to the experience of Novecento and to the Magic Realism. Till April, 29^th 2018 you will be able to visit AMO Museum of Verona where there are the famous artist Fernando Botero's 50 works. An exciting sequence of big works able to tell his career between exuberant shapes and fantastic and fairy atmospheres.

In October, Verona will host also other two important events dedicated to people who loves keeping up with the times: TEDxVerona on 7^th and 8^th October and the 13° edition of ArtVerona | Art Project Fair, the contemporary and modern art from 13^rd to 16^th October at Veronafiere.

The Diocesan museum “Francesco Gonzaga di Mantova” will host the temporary exhibitions called “Antichi Romani, nostri contemporanei” (“Ancient Romans, our contemporaries”) and “L’antica Roma del settecento” (“The ancient 18th-century Rome”) till November 1^st, into two permanent rooms of the museum. That works represent a series of ancientand new  roman views of buildings taken from the illustrations of the 1970 work “Roma antica e moderna” (“The ancient and modern Rome”), dedicated to the cardinal from Mantua and  Secretary of State Silvio Valenti Gonzaga.

4. Art cities

Only few chilometers from our Relais, along the banks of Adige River, stands Verona. She is called "the eternal city of love" and it is well-known thanks to her long past marked by a succession of Powers (from the Roman establishment till the communes-age. then the Dominion of the Scaligeris and the Venetian’s and Habsburg’s Power) that is clearly visible in the architecture. The heart of Piazza Bra is the Arena, the big amphitheater that for many decades has hosted the prestigious lyric season in summer. Walking down the historical central streets you can reach Juliet's house, goal of thousands of visitors charmed by the famous shakespearian tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”. We suggest you to go and see the Roman Theatre, near the city center. It's a wonderful open-theatre and it’s considered one of the most archaeological monument in Verona.

Here potrai you can  consult some roadmaps of the city  accorsing to the freetime you have and how much busy you’re .

Mantua, Virgilio’s hometown is only few chilometers from our Relais. It lies in the lower part of the Po Valley and it is one of the most beautiful cities in Lombardy. The whole town’s sitting on the Mincio’s river-bank where waters form a deep bend that embraces the whole city and creates three lakes: the Lago Superiore, Lago di Mezzo and Lago Inferiore. These lakes offer you the opportunity of visiting the city and the Protected Park of Mincio River aboard Enigma, a solar energy-powered boat. Among the most gorgeous attractions in town we suggest you to visit the 500 rooms of the Palazzo Ducale decorated by artists like Giulio Romano, Raffaello and Mantegna, a real sort of city-palace that extends on about 8-acre compound and Palazzo Te built between 1524 and 1534 as a place of leisure and worldliness for the prince Federico II Gonzaga. Further, near Piazza delle Erbe you’ll be able to visit the Palazzo della Ragione, Palazzo del Podestà
and the a 15^th-century Torre dell’Orologio which is next to.

5. Medieval villages

If you would rather see villages instead of art cities we suggest you to visit Borghetto sul Mincio, that is considered one of the most beautiful Village in Italy, not so far from our relais. This little darling is sitting on Mincio river banks where the river allows the rotation of the typical watermills of the village. As can be understood from village name, Borghetto (“Little Village”, in english) is very small and you can be visited in a few hours, so we suggest you to make a stop on the way by Valeggio, another village where you will be able to see the Castello Scaligero and taste tha famous “tortellini”, what is known also as “love knots”, in the different version into broth or in butter sage sauce. Every fourth Sunday of the month in piazza Carlo Alberto and streets within Valeggio’s historic centre there is the antiques market, a can’t-miss appointment for vitage lovers. Soave is another gorgeous village to see. Surrounded by hills where rows fo vineyards extend it’s ready to offer us the excellent white wine Doc typical of our territory. The Castello Scaligero stands on the top of the hill. It’s a majestic military fortress built in Medieval Times with its impressive walls running down the hill surrounding the historic center. The Touring Club gave him the Orange Flag precisely because Soave has been able to conserve its origins better and for the special hospitality that the Municipality reserves to all tourists who have choosen to visit the village.

We would to know what will you choose for you stay in autumn! Our warm welcome is waiting for you at Otto Ducati d’Oro!