The Winter Olympics were cancelled due to snow....
Okay, so really they were, but we had fun anyway! We started out on Friday, February 17. We traveled south through Germany and then into Switzerland. This was our first time in Switerzland and it was so beautiful, yet small. We covered the entire north/south in maybe 3 hours.
We passed the eastern part of Lake Geneva. The mountains around the lake are amazing and the turquoise water was something I have never experienced.
At the southern part of Switerzland we crossed the St. Bernard Pass/tunnel. This is the region where the dogs come from. It was an amazing entrance to the Alps, but also a bit scary. The little two laned road up to the pass leaves no room for error. Luckily the roads were dry.
In the tunnel we crossed into the Italian Alps. The snow covered mountains with the frost covered trees is a view we will never forget.
We traveled with our friends Eric, Shelly and Brennen. They are also from Denver and Shelly is also working for KPMG. They have helped us so much in learning how to travel and get around. They booked us some rooms at a the Maison Cerise bed and breakfast in Allein, Italy. It is about 6km northwest of Aosta, Italy on a long curvey mountain road. It is right across the road from Eric and Shelly's landlord, Luca and Cecilie.
Luca and Cecilie were wonderful Italian hosts. They had us over for dinner Friday and Saturday night. We ate amazing Italian dishes and had some wonderful Italian wine (not just pizza).
On Saturday we made our way through the Alps snow that had fallen the night before down to Aosta, Italy.
On Sunday we headed down to Turino for the Olympics. It was about a three hour drive (stopping with kids). It was extremely cold in Turino. We had to park in the town and then take a bus up into the mountains to the hill where the event was. Once we got the the tiny village, we had about three hours to kill. We found this little bar tucked away through these little cobblestone streets. We ate some pizza and had some beer. We then headed out to the hill. It was about a ten minute walk.
It was so cool being there! We ran into a lot of Americans also. We had time to buy some mechandice and walk around and also watch some practice jumps. We headed to the general admission area. The snow was very heavy and wet by this time. Once we found a good place to stand the event was postpone by thirty minutes. We decided that with the weather and the drive that maybe we should leave before it started (we all thought that it was probably going to get moved to another night). We finally got on a bus (after 45 minutes in the snow) and then it was like the slowest movin traffic ever and then we stopped. And sat... and then a flood of people started walking down this tiny mountain pass in the dark, thick wet snow. After about an hour or so of waiting we found out that two buses hit head on about 1 km up the road. It was about a 4km walk to the car and I did not want to put Noah through that, so we stayed on the bus. Three hours after we got on the bus we were at the car. Not so bad, huh?
On Monday we headed home. On the way through Switzerland we stopped in Bern. This is where Einstein once lived. The entire city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was an amazing city and we hope to go back and spend a little more time there.
We finally arrived home Monday night and crawled right into bed. It was so weird to think that we had just been in three countries in one weekend. Can't wait to see more!
posted by The Hansens not in Germany @ 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home