{"id":1254,"date":"2023-04-14T12:14:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T12:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2023-04-14T12:14:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T12:14:02","slug":"saturnia-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/2023\/04\/14\/saturnia-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturnia (Italy)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Saturnia-italy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"431\" height=\"251\" title=\"Saturnia italy\" style=\"display: inline; background-image: none;\" alt=\"Saturnia italy\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Saturnia-italy_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Welcome \u2013 <\/i>Lori and I have a tradition of visiting Italy every Easter weekend as the two public holidays in the UK (Good Friday and Easter Monday) give us a 4-day weekend. Just enough time for a 2-3 hour flight and several days of exploring a small area of this charming country. This year we centered our trip at Saturnina, famed for its aquamarine, tiered hot springs. And like many thermal springs, a resort is built around them which just happens to have an 18-hole golf course. So of course, we had to get in a round (unfortunately, the \u201cmagic algae\u201d of the springs didn\u2019t seem to do much for our game). Especially, as we saw dogs throughout the quite luxurious hotel, we had to ask if the course welcomed canine caddies, and they said indeed they did. When I got back, I did a bit of research on dog friendly courses in Italy and it turns out that quite a number of courses in Italy do welcome them. My theory is that golf resorts are more likely to welcome pets (eg. Cornwall), and the courses that don\u2019t allow them tend to be striving to create an elitist vibe. I think the \u201ccountry club\u201d set thinks that the more restrictions you place on the members, the more exclusive the place seems.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=\"#008000\"><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Walk <\/i>\u2013 Most of our walking was searching for the ball\u2026ON THE FAIRWAY! The entire course was covered with daisy fleabane (see photo below). So scanning the area where your ball landed is a bit of a <font color=\"#008000\">\u201cWhere\u2019s Wally\u201d hunting exercise finding your white dot among a sea of white dots. A great opportunity for a practicing your dog\u2019s ball sniffing skills.<i><\/i><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=\"#008000\"><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Wildlife <\/i>\u2013 Only saw a flock of seagulls on one of the fairways (go figure, since we were considerably inland).<\/font><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=\"#008000\"><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Water \u2013 <\/i>Playing at the end of a very wet spring, many of the bunkers became pop-up water hazards (with that tasty muddy water dogs love). The clubhouse gave us free bottles of water, but they were so minerally they really tasted like they too had been drawn from the sand trap puddles.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\">Criss-crossed by streams, but given the proximity to the thermal springs, I wonder if these are a bit sulphury. The course is free of official water hazards until the end of the back nine where holes 15 through 17 are flanked by great lakes, but they are most inaccessible due to reeds.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=\"#008000\"><\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#008000\"><i>Wind Down \u2013 <\/i>The hotel hosting the course has an extensive range of tasty food and, as I mentioned, is very dog friendly. We stopped after the 9<sup>th<\/sup> hole for a little snack and some (non-bottled water) liquid refreshment. And if you want, you can book yourself into the thermal springs for a natural soak to ease away the fatigue and stresses of your round.<\/font><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Saturnia-Italy-flowers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"421\" height=\"311\" title=\"Saturnia Italy flowers\" style=\"display: inline; background-image: none;\" alt=\"Saturnia Italy flowers\" src=\"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Saturnia-Italy-flowers_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome \u2013 Lori and I have a tradition of visiting Italy every Easter weekend as the two public holidays in the UK (Good Friday and Easter Monday) give us a 4-day weekend. Just enough time for a 2-3 hour flight and several days of exploring a small area of this charming country. This year we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doggolf.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}