Skiing in Italy + Bored at Home!
Hi All, Craig here..
well, it's been a stressful few months for me, as my contract was unceremoniously ended at Barcap (management shift, nothing to do with my performance, promise!) , and so-far, I have found landing another IT contract that pays the same rather difficult! ... not even sure why..all of the agents are falling over themselves with "how great your CV is" etc... but then again, it is in the agents interest to say stuff like that I guess (I was going to write something less flattering about Agents, but my good mate Jen in Toronto is one!..Hi Jen!)
Anyway, I "think" I am in the closing phases of landing a good contract at a large insurance firm in London, and if that turns out to be true, I should be back on the job in the next week or so...ABOUT TIME!.
Being off work has had it's up-sides...I've managed to organise a few things around the house (though not nearly enough things), curtains, a few other bits and pieces...
Caren still manages to do more than me and shes working 8+ hours a day!..ah well....
For a couple of weeks, my mate Shaun (see his blog linked on right hand side "Raarky's blog") was back from 3 months boarding, and also unemployed, so we could hang out a bit + the weather was behaving, but hes working now.
Anyways,
I had forgot to report earlier that we spent a week in Italy in February, for the purposes of Skiing!
We were right up the North in the Dolomite's , a mountain range famous for its Dark volcanic rock (Dolomite, surprisingly), on the Border of Austria.
In stark contrast to skiing in France, the weather was PERFECT ...sunny during the day, and a Huge dump of snow over night in the middle of the week!
The place we stayed is called "Pocol" , which is a little district outside of another small, but better known resort village called Cortina D'Ampezzo (I thinko).
So, in chronological order, we flew out of ....Gatwick?..Stanstead?..god only knows, I sure can't remember....and landed about 30 miles north of Venice, hired a car (a little 1.3l front wheel drive thing), and started driving North.
It took us a few hours + we had no Map! , but somehow we not only ended up in the right area, but we even found the Hotel we had booked!..an absolute Miracle I assure you.
We were a bit late, and it was 1AM local time by then, so the Hotel Lady wasn't particularly glad to see us (hah!), but too bad!...we'd made it, hadn't crashed (crazy Italian drivers + wrong side of the road + slippery conditions + crappy little rust bucket car), and were keen to hit the sack and go skiing the next day.
The Room we had was good...had great heating and a large Bathroom which is all you really need when skiing (somewhere to dry your stuff, and somewhere to sleep).
So we got up the next morning had Breakfast (included) and headed into Cortina to figure out the skii pass options + hire some gear etc..
What we hadn't realised is that the Dolomite's themselves have DOZENS of ski fields, and in our general vicinity (say within a 30 minute drive radius) there was close to 20 different ski fields to choose from!
Luckily you can buy a "Dolomite Super Ski" pass which gives you access to ANY lifts in the whole region, which was super cool.
So anyway, we got some gear, and got our passes and decided to just hit the first chair lift we saw, which, as we drove about, was only about 30 seconds down the road.
What followed was a GREAT days skiing, on snow in very good condition!..spirits were high, and the slopes were next to empty in places, which was magic. I can't remember the name of the mountain, but it was one of 3 or 4 in Cortina itself anyways.
The next day (Sunday presumably?) we decided to do the other side of the Cortina valley, which had the old winter Olympic pistes on it, and again, all though the weather closed in a bit, we had a really magic days skiing....at times we were the only ones on the entire slope, and when you have a 150 meter wide black run cutting through amazing mountain scenery, you really do feel on top of the world!
The next day we got a bit more adventurous and decided to head out a 1/2 hour or so to try one of the mountains further up the valley.
Basically 80% of the fields/mountains were connected by lifts and runs, so it was probably possible to ski between all of the various different places, as we were to discover later in the week.
So anyway, with this in mind, we parked up the top of a pass with a mind to ski down to the next town over, about maybe 10 or 15 miles away.
Once again, we were the only ones on the slopes, and we had the most Magical scenic ski down to the bottom..probably took us most of an hour to pick our way down, as they were quite gentle slopes, and we quite often would stop to take in the scenery (yeah OK, and rest our legs!).
I wasn't particularly clear on where to go on any of the piste maps we had, but we soon saw a log cabin in the distance, and headed for it.
Just over the ridge from the log cabin was a huge stretch of flat heading towards a bridge, which presumably led to the village. "oh no" we thought..."massive traverse", or even worse, "massive walk", but just then, an odd thing registered....just there, just at the bottom of this small slope was a bunch of guys with teams of 2 horses each with massive ropes laid out behind them.
"How odd" we thought, must be some sort of local farming thing perhaps?
And then , of course, it hit us..they were there to tow us into the village, saving us a big walk!..yay!
So we skid down to the horses, and in broken Italienglish managed to sort the fare out (about 2 euros each?), and sat around for 15 mins or so waiting for enough people to arrive to justify getting the whole horse team moving.
Once enough Turistas arrived, we all grabbed onto the rope, and off we went!
Getting towed along by the horses was pretty fun, and not very hard work, and soon we were in the village.
I guess it was late afternoon by then, because we had to start thinking about getting back up the pass to our car.
It may have been possible to Chair lift / Ski back, and if that's the case, we probably should have tried it, but instead we thought "no worries we'll just catch the bus".
Hmm...buses in Italy = VERY unreliable! as it turns out, so we never managed to catch the last bus, and were stuck trying to get a shuttle van, or even a taxi!
What made it worse was, it had begun to snow quite heavily, and our little car was up the top of a very high mountain pass with no chains and only front wheel drive!
"this can't be good" we though, and we were right!
When we finally convinced a Taxi to take us ALLL the way up to the pass (about an hours drive) it ended up costing us about 60 euros, and then, to make matters worse, when we got to out car, it was VERY VERY icy, very dark, snowing . So bad, the highly experienced taxi drive spun out his 4WD van into a ditch trying to turn around...after we helped him get it out of the ditch, he shook his head and said "...no drive.... you die" , which was pretty plain.
I have to say, I was pretty relieved to let him take us back to the hotel, even though the whole ride cost us 100 euros, because I was S#*tting my self about trying to drive down the mountain.
To vindicate us, we passed 3 vehicles that has slid into ditches on the way down!
Never mind!..so it snowed all night, but was Chrystal clear by morning, with about a 1/2 foot of fresh snow now on the ground!
Our first priority that morning had to be to get the car back down the mountain, so we caught the buss up to the pass (about 45 mins drive), dug the car out and headed back down. By then of course all of the roads had been conditioned, graded and salted so they were perfectly drivable.
Anyways, the rest of the week passed in a blur of skiing..I think we ski'd all 6 of the days we were there, and it really was fab!
A great Holiday, and I cannot wait for ski season next year!
Apologies for photo quality..there were all taken on my Cell phone, and as a result are completely out of focus and very murky...!
well, it's been a stressful few months for me, as my contract was unceremoniously ended at Barcap (management shift, nothing to do with my performance, promise!) , and so-far, I have found landing another IT contract that pays the same rather difficult! ... not even sure why..all of the agents are falling over themselves with "how great your CV is" etc... but then again, it is in the agents interest to say stuff like that I guess (I was going to write something less flattering about Agents, but my good mate Jen in Toronto is one!..Hi Jen!)
Anyway, I "think" I am in the closing phases of landing a good contract at a large insurance firm in London, and if that turns out to be true, I should be back on the job in the next week or so...ABOUT TIME!.
Being off work has had it's up-sides...I've managed to organise a few things around the house (though not nearly enough things), curtains, a few other bits and pieces...
Caren still manages to do more than me and shes working 8+ hours a day!..ah well....
For a couple of weeks, my mate Shaun (see his blog linked on right hand side "Raarky's blog") was back from 3 months boarding, and also unemployed, so we could hang out a bit + the weather was behaving, but hes working now.
Anyways,
I had forgot to report earlier that we spent a week in Italy in February, for the purposes of Skiing!
We were right up the North in the Dolomite's , a mountain range famous for its Dark volcanic rock (Dolomite, surprisingly), on the Border of Austria.
In stark contrast to skiing in France, the weather was PERFECT ...sunny during the day, and a Huge dump of snow over night in the middle of the week!
The place we stayed is called "Pocol" , which is a little district outside of another small, but better known resort village called Cortina D'Ampezzo (I thinko).
So, in chronological order, we flew out of ....Gatwick?..Stanstead?..god only knows, I sure can't remember....and landed about 30 miles north of Venice, hired a car (a little 1.3l front wheel drive thing), and started driving North.
It took us a few hours + we had no Map! , but somehow we not only ended up in the right area, but we even found the Hotel we had booked!..an absolute Miracle I assure you.
We were a bit late, and it was 1AM local time by then, so the Hotel Lady wasn't particularly glad to see us (hah!), but too bad!...we'd made it, hadn't crashed (crazy Italian drivers + wrong side of the road + slippery conditions + crappy little rust bucket car), and were keen to hit the sack and go skiing the next day.
The Room we had was good...had great heating and a large Bathroom which is all you really need when skiing (somewhere to dry your stuff, and somewhere to sleep).
So we got up the next morning had Breakfast (included) and headed into Cortina to figure out the skii pass options + hire some gear etc..
What we hadn't realised is that the Dolomite's themselves have DOZENS of ski fields, and in our general vicinity (say within a 30 minute drive radius) there was close to 20 different ski fields to choose from!
Luckily you can buy a "Dolomite Super Ski" pass which gives you access to ANY lifts in the whole region, which was super cool.
So anyway, we got some gear, and got our passes and decided to just hit the first chair lift we saw, which, as we drove about, was only about 30 seconds down the road.
What followed was a GREAT days skiing, on snow in very good condition!..spirits were high, and the slopes were next to empty in places, which was magic. I can't remember the name of the mountain, but it was one of 3 or 4 in Cortina itself anyways.
The next day (Sunday presumably?) we decided to do the other side of the Cortina valley, which had the old winter Olympic pistes on it, and again, all though the weather closed in a bit, we had a really magic days skiing....at times we were the only ones on the entire slope, and when you have a 150 meter wide black run cutting through amazing mountain scenery, you really do feel on top of the world!
The next day we got a bit more adventurous and decided to head out a 1/2 hour or so to try one of the mountains further up the valley.
Basically 80% of the fields/mountains were connected by lifts and runs, so it was probably possible to ski between all of the various different places, as we were to discover later in the week.
So anyway, with this in mind, we parked up the top of a pass with a mind to ski down to the next town over, about maybe 10 or 15 miles away.
Once again, we were the only ones on the slopes, and we had the most Magical scenic ski down to the bottom..probably took us most of an hour to pick our way down, as they were quite gentle slopes, and we quite often would stop to take in the scenery (yeah OK, and rest our legs!).
I wasn't particularly clear on where to go on any of the piste maps we had, but we soon saw a log cabin in the distance, and headed for it.
Just over the ridge from the log cabin was a huge stretch of flat heading towards a bridge, which presumably led to the village. "oh no" we thought..."massive traverse", or even worse, "massive walk", but just then, an odd thing registered....just there, just at the bottom of this small slope was a bunch of guys with teams of 2 horses each with massive ropes laid out behind them.
"How odd" we thought, must be some sort of local farming thing perhaps?
And then , of course, it hit us..they were there to tow us into the village, saving us a big walk!..yay!
So we skid down to the horses, and in broken Italienglish managed to sort the fare out (about 2 euros each?), and sat around for 15 mins or so waiting for enough people to arrive to justify getting the whole horse team moving.
Once enough Turistas arrived, we all grabbed onto the rope, and off we went!
Getting towed along by the horses was pretty fun, and not very hard work, and soon we were in the village.
I guess it was late afternoon by then, because we had to start thinking about getting back up the pass to our car.
It may have been possible to Chair lift / Ski back, and if that's the case, we probably should have tried it, but instead we thought "no worries we'll just catch the bus".
Hmm...buses in Italy = VERY unreliable! as it turns out, so we never managed to catch the last bus, and were stuck trying to get a shuttle van, or even a taxi!
What made it worse was, it had begun to snow quite heavily, and our little car was up the top of a very high mountain pass with no chains and only front wheel drive!
"this can't be good" we though, and we were right!
When we finally convinced a Taxi to take us ALLL the way up to the pass (about an hours drive) it ended up costing us about 60 euros, and then, to make matters worse, when we got to out car, it was VERY VERY icy, very dark, snowing . So bad, the highly experienced taxi drive spun out his 4WD van into a ditch trying to turn around...after we helped him get it out of the ditch, he shook his head and said "...no drive.... you die" , which was pretty plain.
I have to say, I was pretty relieved to let him take us back to the hotel, even though the whole ride cost us 100 euros, because I was S#*tting my self about trying to drive down the mountain.
To vindicate us, we passed 3 vehicles that has slid into ditches on the way down!
Never mind!..so it snowed all night, but was Chrystal clear by morning, with about a 1/2 foot of fresh snow now on the ground!
Our first priority that morning had to be to get the car back down the mountain, so we caught the buss up to the pass (about 45 mins drive), dug the car out and headed back down. By then of course all of the roads had been conditioned, graded and salted so they were perfectly drivable.
Anyways, the rest of the week passed in a blur of skiing..I think we ski'd all 6 of the days we were there, and it really was fab!
A great Holiday, and I cannot wait for ski season next year!
Apologies for photo quality..there were all taken on my Cell phone, and as a result are completely out of focus and very murky...!
posted by Craig R at
2:28 pm
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