Piz Gloria

What a morning we had! First the cable car rides, and then the spectacular views. It got cooler the higher we went, but it was quite hot already in the valley when we left. They have turned the top of the mountain into a 360 degree, turning to see all the views, restaurant that features highly the scenes from the 1969 James Bond movie. Here's a link if you'd like more information. https://schilthorn.ch/6/en/James_Bond_Brunch. They have thought of every little touch. Even the bathrooms have 007 lines from the movies piped over a speaker system, and Bond girls were in my bathroom, in silhouette, on every door. I don't know what was inthe men's room. Out on what was the helicopter pad, there were props and information kiosks.

and the decor was not changed at all.

We had James Bond's preferred champagne with brunch. (Of course) The meal itself was much more American style than any of our breakfasts so far. (For example, it had hot meats and eggs, in addition to the cold meats and cheeses I had been seeing) There were a lot of options, and even the cappuccino was fancy.

Italy 2023, Driving into the Alps, part 1

Well fed and finally well rested, Chuck was excited to get some hairpins under his belt so we set off for "the hills". I really want to establish first and foremost that he's a great driver, and I'm a lousy passenger that can get car sick and fearful, so this was going to be a good relationship builder, to say the least.

You cannot rely on the satelites to pinpoint your location in the mountains. It's "close" but so is the edge of the cliff. The roads are not built for E class size vehicles, but more for Fiat Pandas. We had some very scary moments over the next 17 days. (Foreshadowing, we didn't go over any cliffs, but we did scrape up the car. Twice. One on each rear quarter panel.) Look at these stunning views. We ate lunch out on this most beautiful patio, and simply took it all in. Many of the churches sit on mountaintops and are left open for worshippers to stop by any time. We stumbled across this one which I thought was simply stunning. Painted murals of christian rites on every wall.

We spent all day driving, and went out for a very nice dinner when we returned. Those are whole hams hanging overhead. This was very common in the markets and even the restaurants. Look at this Caprese salad, the tomatoes were so fresh! My pasta dish was topped with black truffles, outstanding local wine, we finished with lemoncello, and then had to have just a little more gelato. Because.

The hotel whimsy was everywhere. Tomorrow we head to Switzerland, Lauterbrunnen specifically.

Cable Car Ride to Piz Gloria

I took a series of videos so I could relive the cable car rides that it took to get to the top of the mountain. I've taken a cable car ride in Northern Minnesota but this was a whole other level. It was never scary, it was very smooth, not terribly crowded, and cost about $100 for a round trip ticket to the 4 combined. You could get off and go to any of the villages on the way. You could only use it one day. Can you imagine skiing here? WOW. Enjoy! If these links are hard to read, you may go to my YouTube channel, at Wolf Piano, to access them directly. The photo is from inside the cable car at some point, the light reflected off the glass. (They are not alien ships or clouds, ha ha) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSQfSlksKls Cable Car ride, #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJnNyDuMYw Cable Car ride, #3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rUT61sNask&t=4s And finally! It was spectacular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vE2SGDSaKE

Heading to Switzerland through the Great St. Bernard Pass

There were no passport stations to check us into a new country. Those times have passed, I guess. I was kind of hoping to get my passport stamped. Did you know that guiderails are not common even though you're on the edge of a mountain? And roads are "almost" two lanes in places. Almost. This was a white knuckle day for me. Luckily it was daylight and the skies were clear and sunny for this part of the adventure. Here are a few pictures from out the passenger window. Suddenly we were above the tree line.

As one point traffic was at a complete stop. Guess what? A Stag decided to sit on the edge of the road so we all had to carefully go around him. I actually got a picture too!

We had lunch at Lake Thun. I loved the way the clouds were hanging in the sky, and the color of the water was rich with minerals from the mountain.

It just kept getting more beautiful. Pleasant villages nestled in the sides of the mountains.

We arrived in Lauterbrunnen and every bone in my body was in awe of this place we were going to stay. It's at the foot of the waterfall.

It was unusually hot in the valley. Much of the planet was hot that day. Tomorrow we're going to go up to the Piz Gloria at the top of the mountain for a spectacular 007 brunch. We'll need sweaters and hiking boots. Chuck used to ski up here so we had packed accordingly. Smart man.

Italy 2023, Aosta Valley continued

I had a friend who wanted to know about the FOOD, so many of my pictures are of the cuisine of the trip. I'm imagining that you would like to see and hear about them too. Aosta is known for the invention of Fontina cheese and has a very particular wine produced here, so we tried both. Chuck had carbonara, and my dish was a puff pastry with mushrooms, in a Fontina sauce. Mine was divine, and I didn't have time to taste Chuck's. It was gone in a flash. The wine was lighter than a cabernet, very pretty color, and also...gone fast.

The town was charming, lit up at dusk after dinner, and I had my first gelato of the trip less than 24 hours after arriving. Woot, it was worth the wait!

I tried coffee gelato every time it was available, and also had pistachio this time. Chuck was very fond of the lemon everytime. You choose cup or cone, and what size (how many scoops) you'd like. Most of the time, 2 scoops was more than plenty for me, and cost around 3 euros. The Arch of Augustus in the city piazza was erected in 25 BCE. It was on the Appian Way, basically the 2048 year old Roman super highway. The Romans used this as a major travel highway for their military and to move goods across Europe. The Arch is huge and in great condition. I don't believe many things we make today will last 2000+ years. Maybe? Pictures don't do it justice.

Italy 2023, Aosta Valley

I knew we were on a European trip when they served a unique treat on the plane, and spoke the inflight messages in multiple languages. I always love that. We got a very classy black E series Mercedes for the next 3 weeks. It is a bigger car than Chuck usually drives. I hadn't slept much on the plane; Chuck watched several movies and didn't sleep at all, but we jumped into that car as if we were teenagers breaking loose, rather than the 60 plus people we really are.

Our first sites as we drove out of Milan were the foothills of the alps and I was already enamored. We planned to use Aosta as our jet lag stop. I made the mistake of booking a little family run motel on the wrong dates. So, we had to quickly adapt and stayed at the Omama hotel in town instead, which was one of only a few that had an opening for 3 days. Here was also the first car parking trick that carried through the trip. Many of the towns we visited have no car zones (ZTL) and we had to plan where to store/park the car or pay fees to the hotel to have a vehicle on site. Towns also had visitor taxes which are not included in the price of your stay. Many were around 3-4 euros per person per night. A note here about Dollars to Euros. When the dollar and Euro were trading at a 1:1 ratio last December, I went to the bank and got $1,000 transferred into euros. It was then easy to know how much I was paying for everything. While we were there the ratio was more like $1.18 for a Euro. Our credit cards worked and billed us at the current rate. We planned this expense into your trip. Omama was decorated in bright pink and had flamingo theme in our room. They also had a wonderful morning breakfast.

Aosta has the most incredible Roman ruins mingled seamlessly into their town. They speak both Italian and French here, and we were in the hotel with a few tourists but I don't think any of them were Americans. There was a group of Harley Davidson riders from Germany and a few families. We were very tired and it took about 3 days to get our internal clocks reset to the new time zone. It was the perfect place to walk, stretch, and breathe the crisp air. I loved this wood carving of accordian players in the town square.

Italy 2023

I've wanted to see Venice "before it sinks into the sea" since I was in my masters studies in the '80s. The romantic thoughts of the city built on water captivated me. When my friend Kathy returned from Italy in 2016, we met at the gelato shop that was on the 4th floor of the Mall of America. She toyed with her gelato and told me it was really nothing like eating it there, and so I pushed away my cup and vowed to have my next gelato in Italy. A divorce and a pandemic delayed my plans, but I have just returned, and it was everything I hoped for. I'm going to try to keep my exclamation points to a minimum, and share my observations and wonderful adventure here.

Chuck and I started planning this trip last August. In October, my mother was diagnosed with cancer that had already spread to her bones. The many videos, books, and You Tube channels we watched every weekend really helped me take my mind off the situation, as she declined and passed away. Chuck had a few airports that he did not want to travel through, (known for losing luggage) so we found a United flight that went from Minneapolis-Chicago-straight to Milan. We upgraded our seats on the long leg since we're both tall, which really helped on the way over. I highly recommend the full year of planning and choosing sites on your own if you like to have a unique experience. There are lots of tours out there, but Chuck felt comfortable driving a car, and we could then include time in Switzerland and Austria and see more of the alps. He wanted to show me some of the places he used to visit when he lived and skied in Europe. Here is the link to the overview map we used to coordinate our rental rooms and BandB's. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?hl=en&ll=45.96356947794066%2C10.51034249999999&z=8&mid=1iNQerg_4znTdhwxVFkDX6iX4PCboHo0 The outgoing flights were on time and so very smooth. We landed in Chicago for a pretty sunset.