February 10,

We were up and about by 0730. We had our Javas and breakfast with the last of our Granola and oatmeal and yogurt. Then we set out, catching a bus at a stop right near us. Once on the bus we rode around 45 minutes to get to the National Museum of Wine and the Harvest; Giol and Gargantini Houses.

When we arrived – Google failed us on where the entrance was – but we found it, after walking around to the front and its grand fencing. Jeff had read there was a tour at 1030, and we were a couple of minutes late. The guard at the gate waved us in without paying, after she talked with someone on her “walkie-talkie.” We went over to one of the houses and a lady met us. She explained her English was not good enough to give us a tour, but we were welcome to come into the house and do a self guided tour with the placards.

So we used Google translate on all the placards and pieced together the history of two men, brother-in-laws, that were both entrepreneurs. They basically started the wine – commercial, big-scale – industry here in Mendoza. Wine production was ramped up from 1898 of 40,000 HL, which is 1,057,000 gallons, to in 1911- 420,000 HL, which is 11,095,000 million gallons!!! They even built a wine “pipeline” to aid in processing! This we found to be INCREDIBLE and Fascinating! The B-I-L’s had made their fortune and returned back to Europe for the remainder of their lives. Each had large families, of course. One had eight children and the other had ten.

Anyway, since they both had hailed from Europe, they had their grand Casas built like European estates with gardens. The first casa (the most beautiful one to me) was the only one that was open and tourable. The place was not in the greatest condition as it seems to not be kept up for museum quality, but you can feel the grandeur that must have been. There were tile or parquet wooden floors, tin ceilings and some original furniture. Two main front doors on the lower level had French door openings that were accented with windows and trimmed out to look like skeleton key slots, only way bigger. That was very unique. The main entry way was open to the balconied second floor with a large decorated stained glass. The rest of the lighting in the house came from ‘one of a kind’ glass chandeliers. A side – the town did not even have lighting or running water yet, but these houses did! The lady unlocked the original bathroom and showed it to us. It had a decorated porcelain toilet! Beautiful!! A couple of rooms upstairs were turned into displays of wine production. But sadly, it seems the place has turned into a ‘photo op’ zone. One girl was dressed up and getting ready to have pictures taken in the mansion as we were touring.

We left this house and peeked into the windows of the second house (the guide lady said we could). There was not much to see as it was very dilapidated inside and dark. The front outside of this second house was very different. In some ways it reminded me of a cathedral, but the sides and back were very plain and in disrepair. It was like a facade -fake house.

Anyway, I’m so glad we came here! We learned a bit more history of Mendoza and its wine beginnings. And again it was free (even though a sign posted pricing). We now played musical buses, getting on the wrong one (but not according to Google) and then two more to get us back into Centro Mendoza. Thankfully our Sube card was not charged each time – that was a blessing.

Once back near our place we stopped at El Corner and bought a Lomo de Pollo (“chicken steak”) – a sandwich of lemon-marinated chicken, guacamole, lettuce, and provolone cheese on Ciabatta bread; and a Captain Chori (pork sausage) – a sandwich of pork chorizo, lettuce, criolla sauce, and chimichurri in French bread. Both came with an actual small order of fries. We took them back and ate half of each sandwich with a Malbec wine. Once we finished eating, we hand-washed/rinsed off our shoes and attempted to do a load of laundry. I say attempted because we could not find the laundry room door key! We turned the apartment upside down and inside out without any luck. So we let our host know. He texted back to check with the morning housekeeper. She may have an extra key or found it. So bummed out we decided to watch the last of the Boba Fett series with popcorn. So a couple of bad things to an otherwise good day! C’est la vie… such is life.