Websites Listed in My Favorite Bathroom Book (Part 16)

It's time for me to look at another website in my favorite bathroom book!

Today's website is...

NOT what I thought it would be, because that website seems to be out of service. It was the Eagle School of Microlighting. 

There was a photo of this microlighting thing in my book. It looked terrifying to me.

So...now instead I'll be looking at Villa Gusto la dulce vita.  Their home page promotes themselves as being a playground for grown-ups. Then there's a picture of a hotel room and a picture of food. So I guess it's a restaurant and hotel. Plus there's other stuff.  My bathroom book says it's in Bright, Victoria, and that Bright is a ski town. So maybe the playground refers to the skiing stuff.

I just scrolled down a couple of millimeters and saw there are a few paragraphs. There's something about cars. If I'm understanding things right, they have some kind of partnership with a thing called Fiat Chrysler Australia.  They say,  The valued customers of Fiat Chrysler will not only get the chance to put these cutting edge vehicles through their paces, but will also enjoy a taste of "La Dolce Vita" (the sweet life).  Then a few sentences later, they say Unfortunately, this means that we are not able to take bookings for the next three years, but we will be continuing to offer our guests the ultimate high country experience of great food, wine, accommodation and when required, thrilling, high octane, pure adrenalin pleasure. 

I didn't understand that at first. But now I think I get it. La Dolce Vita is accommodating the people who are wanting to do the car thing. Because of that, they have no room for other guests. But in three years, they'll be back to accepting regular bookings from the non-car people. All this was written in July 2013, so the three years is partly over.  I'm guessing they have about a year and a half left to go.

I thought Fiat Chrysler was some type of long term event, but it looks like it's just the car company. So I guess people wanting to buy the car come to Bright and then stay at the La Dolce Vita?  It's like some kind of upscale shopping experience, I suppose.

This public relations company has an article about the partnership. They said media people were brought to Bright where they drove through the lovely landscape in a fancy car. Then they stayed at La Dolce Vita.  So I'm guessing it's not any old customer they're taking in, but people who can help with promotion.  Or maybe not. Maybe in the first few months, they had media and other folks like that. Maybe later, other people were accepted.  I wonder, though, if it's an invite-only type thing. I'm imagining it probably it is.

Now I'm wondering if I'm a bad person. Max just regurgitated his breakfast. I found him eating it and let him continue on with that. It saves me a clean up job and also prevents waste. He doesn't often eat what comes back up, so I'm guessing this is one of the cases where the food hasn't been too  chemically altered by his body. It's probably very close to it's original state.  And fortunately it occurred on the hard floor rather than carpet. So if he doesn't eat it all, the clean up won't be too difficult.  Still, I'm grossed out. I have a thing against vomit. Though I do much better tolerating the cat stuff than the human stuff. And I don't even know if this qualifies as vomit. I don't think it's gone very far at all into the digestive process.

Sorry. Yeah. I should get back to the Villa Gusto.

Here's information about their suites.  They say sleeping on their bed is like sleeping on autumn leaves. I've never slept on leaves before. I suppose it's comfortable. You'd need a big pile of leaves, I imagine.

They say they have seven suites, but then they have pictures and names of only five. Maybe there are multiples of the same suites.

Here we go. There are three of the Mallanzane suites.

No. Wait. I'm totally lost.

I clicked on some of the other suites, and they say there are three of those as well.

Where are they getting the number seven?

I went and counted all the suites. There are thirteen.

It all has something to do with colors. I think there are supposed to be seven different colors of suites. But then they only name five: ciocolata (chocolate), limone (a dark yellow) Rossa (a dark red), Bianco (white), and Mellanzane (Eggplant).

There's talk of the rooms having Italian artwork, which leads me to think this whole place has an Italy theme. So the color names are probably Italian.

Here's a page about their food.  As one might expect, they serve Italian cuisine.  Their food photo includes asparagus. I ate that the other night at California Pizza Kitchen. I didn't even really notice it was in my food, but I became aware that night when I had to pee.  The smell bothers me. Yeah, as if normal pee smells lovely.  But still. I guess I'm used to that smell. Or actually...Does urine smell?  I think in the morning it does or other times that it might be strong. But in general, I don't think it has much of an odor.  Anyway, after that experience the other night; I decided maybe I'll try to avoid eating asparagus.

Here's an online brochure that lists things to do when you're staying at Villa Gusto.

It seems the big highlight is Mt. Buffalo. It can be seen from Villa Gusto.  But if you want a more in-depth mountain experience, you have to drive fifteen minutes.  At the mountain, you can swim, canoe, look at a waterfall, etc.

You know, I just realized I forgot to look at where Bright is. Although I have some idea, because the book told me.  It's between Melbourne and Sydney.  But I want to see on Google Maps.

Okay....

It's about four hours north-east of Melbourne.

It's seven hours south-west of Sydney.

So, it's much closer to Melbourne.

I think the book says it's a good place to stop off during the drive from Melbourne to Sydney (or vise-versa). Though it takes you about two hours out of your way.  I'd rather stop somewhere more convenient. Although if you're very interested in seeing a place, it doesn't hurt to take detour.  It's like on our way home from Disneyland, we stopped at the Grand Canyon.  It took us a couple hours out our way, but we felt it was worth it.

The Villa Gusto brochure says they have bikes you can borrow. But then they say...but flat tyres are your worry.  That doesn't sound very inviting! And what does that mean? Their tires are worrisome? The terrain is likely to cause flat tires? They're not going to help you if you get a flat tire?

I don't know. It doesn't sound like something that should be in a brochure. It seems more like something that's put in small print on the waiver.

There's gold history in Bright— a gold rush cemetery. That might be interesting to some people.

There are wineries.

There's a place called Bright Berry Farms.   Bright Berry Farms says they used to let people pick their own berries, but they don't allow that anymore. Now you go and buy berries that they already picked. Or you can get sorbet and other berry desserts.

I wonder why they stopped the picking. It seems like that would be the best part.  Although I've never done any fruit picking activities before.  I mean I've picked figs from the trees at the lake house. But I've never been to a fruit-picking tourist attraction. I wonder if I'd like it.

The brochure says, Beware of ducks on the Ovens River and Koalas above!  I guess that's their clever way of promoting the fact that you might see ducks and koalas. They make it sound like a negative, but in reality it's a positive. At least for most people. I guess there could be a few people in the world who have a duck or koala phobia.

According to this website, a phobia of ducks is called Anatidaephobia.  I wonder how many people have it.

There's a Facebook page about Anatidaephobia, but I think it's a joke.  On Google I'm seeing a bunch of websites that say Anatidaephobia is not just a phobia of ducks, but a phobia that wherever you go, a duck is watching you.

I think it's all a joke.

But I do wonder if there are people out there who fear ducks.

How about koalas?

Anyway...Villa Gusto promotes koalas and ducks with a warning. So maybe the warning about flat tires is twisted kind of promotion as well?  Maybe it's a badge of honor to provide terrain that is likely to cause flat tires?  I don't know much about cycling.

The Bright area does sound nice, though. It seems there's lots of food—gelato, the berries, pubs, bakeries, etc.  But you can balance all the eating with walking and other exercise.  I think that's my type of holiday—eating a lot, but then being very active.  That's pretty much what we do at Disney World. We eat, walk...and go on rides.  That's on my mind right now, because we're going there soon.