Snowcation in Europe

This weekend was much more chill and local. We slept in on Saturday and planned to do a snowshoe hike, but Livia’s key broke off in the door and her door looks somewhat medieval so it didn’t actually latch closed. So she stayed at home and Gaia and I went out exploring Briançon.  But first, a baguette! Map of the old city - Cité Vauban We went first up and around the fort and walls of the city, and found a spot overlooking all of the city to hang out, it was a great spot where you could see across to other mountains but also into the old city.  From the peak of the hill, we hiked down to the river and along it trying to get to the military base on the other side of the river. It was a little too snowy to hike up this part of the mountain so we ended up just staying along the river and walking to the bridge that connects the old city with the military fort. The river park had this huge amusement area with a ropes course, paintball, laser tag, and climbing, looks like it would b...

Sciare (Ski) day started with a trek up through the old village to the car (obvi no parking inside the town) where we got breakfast- the pan au chocolate here is the pastry of choice. And then we headed to the slopes of Mongenevre. I was a little nervous at first having zero cell phone reception or knowledge of French, but we stayed together the whole time and it was great! It was a different type of resort than in the US- it covered several mountaintops, really more than you could count, and was so large! Otherwise differences- the lift ticket was like €50, way more skiers than snowboarders, way less concept of personal space, no real ski parks, and at the top of this mountain was a lift that I had to personally sit on, that dragged us up one at a time. It brought me back to my learning-to-ski days and I was definitely afraid but it was actually quite fun! There was some fresh powder and more ice as the day went on, but I am more comfortable on a groomed trail, so boring I know, and t...

Today was a transit day, with lots of new exploration!     We started in Milan and headed over to the train station. There is a really cool sustainable housing project very close to the train station called Bosco Verticale that we tried to see but it was a little too dark at 7:30am. Here is a pic of it in the daylight. We first took the train to Torino and met up with one of Livia’s aunts friends, and then took the train up to Oulx, a little village almost to the border of France. This little mountain town is super small and cute. We took a passagiata around the town for a little while while we waited for Gaia (Livia’s sister) to finish working, and then headed to Briançon. I think I was offered coffee more than 5 times that day! I accepted twice… the coffee is so delicious. It is funny to hear the stereotypes about Italy and France. Romans do not trust pasta from the north, unless it is stuffed pasta, because they say it is overcooked. The northerners say that Romans are...