Skiing at last!

We are remiss with blog. Sorries.

There is snow! Lots of it, all over the mountains. So much, in fact, that Sestriere was on the (national, local? I can’t tell) news. Further, this weekend is an italiano-vacanza-bonanza! Tuesday will be a national holiday, and so of course, Monday is pretty much a holiday too. ‘Bridging’ the French call it, and it’s rife here in the ice-cream capital of the world too.

Everything points toward a day’s skiing.

The lower mountains aren’t sufficiently snow encrusted as yet, so we drove up to Sestriere – where they held the (skiing part of the) winter olypics in 2006. An excellent day was had. The snow was in excellent condition, most of the lifts were open (thought the Via Lattea connections aren’t open yet), and there was a special price because it’s the first weekend – bonus.

The only minor downside was that most of the rest of piedmonte was also there. Italian people aren’t so polite when it somes the the whole queuing thing. Well, I think _most_ of them are quite polite, but it’s always the minority spoiling it for the majority (that’ll be the teacher in me speaking…).

After battling our way onto the main lift a few times (30 minute queues! unheard of in Portes du Soleil ;)), a nice Italian chap, who was equally frustrated in queuing, pointed out that there was another lift, from just a bit further round, which went to almost exactly the same place!

Off we skied, and sure enough, a newer, shinier lift, with no queue, going almost all the way to the top. The rest of the afternoon was bliss. Today was also nicely rounded off by the beef daube-stew-casserole-barfignon made yesterday, to which we came home to a big bowlfull.  Yummy.

Some pictures for your enjoyment below.

Love,

James (and Amy too) xxx