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The Whos down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot

27 Dec
When Dr. Seuss wrote “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” I think he must have had Ortisei in mind. It sits in a steep valley beneath snowy peaks reminding one of the “Whos down in Whoville.” As we descended yesterday from the highest lift station we could just make out the
From up here (in a gondola) Ortisei seems like little Whoville down in the valley.
From up here (in a gondola) Ortisei seems like little Whoville down in the valley.
village far below, and imagined the Grinch careening down the steep slopes to return the Christmas treasures. Instead we saw skiers launching off the mountain and enjoying a run of several kilometers albeit on mostly artificial snow. Ortisei calls itself Il Paese di Natale, and celebrates for 25 days, right up to Epiphany on January 6. They like Christmas a lot.
We spent a lovely Christmas Day in the Alpe di Siusi (if we are Facebook Friends you have already seen a few pictures from that hike), and on Santo Stefano (Dec. 26) we followed a local alpine guide from the Catores group on a hike to the Church of San Giacomo, which turned out to be a pretty good workout of 2 ½ hours roundtrip. I am pleased to say we old timers were not the slowest ones on the uphill stretch.
Dating to the 11th century, far above Ortisei. My Swedish ancestors were still practicing Norsk Mythology at that time, I think.
Dating to the 11th century, far above Ortisei. My Swedish ancestors were still practicing Norsk Mythology at that time, I think.
Fresco on San Giacomo, 15th century! There is also a quaint cemetery with a view to "die" for.
Fresco on San Giacomo, 15th century! There is also a quaint cemetery with a view to “die” for.
We also spent part of the evening in Ortisei to see the activity during the passeggiata and the fairy tale-like village transformed by holiday lights.
The Mercatino di Natale bustles even the night after Christmas.
What some countries call Boxing Day is Santo Stefano in Italy. The crowds are festive!
There are welcome warming fires scattered about.
La piccola chiesa in Ortisei, simply adorned.
There are 4 ice trees. illuminated from within. These are placed in the rushing river that runs through Ortisei.
Luckily we are able to be active (as was the point of this trip) to compensate for the amazing food we are consuming at Hotel Albion.
We are staying at what is for us one of the nicest places we have ever stayed. I would compare it to Salishan Lodge on the Oregon Coast in terms of elegance, although the Albion has a decidedly ski-sport bent versus the golf club sophistication at Salishan.  On a normal trip we stay in B&Bs, apartments and small hotels with a goal of spending no more than EURO 100.00 per night. Usually we are successful at that budget number on an average basis, and sometimes we get breakfast included. In planning this holiday trip, a gift to ourselves in lieu of stuff, we wanted to be a little pampered and stay somewhere special and memorable. I agonized over several choices in Ortisei, and while this one is expensive, it is half the price of the high-end properties here!
Like many European resort hotels, the meals are included in a half-pension plan.  Breakfast and dinner are included and are beyond ample. Breakfast offers almost every kind of fruit, a make-your-own juice bar, several choices of breads, pastries, eggs, sausages, assorted salume from speck to cotto, mortadella and salami, yogurt, muesli, jams, a honey bar (6 options!), a dozen types of cheese, and I would venture at least that many types of butter, flavored and not. This is the Tyrol and the northern influence on cooking brings butter to the forefront. Dinners are five courses including an amazing over-the-top salad buffet and an ever-changing menu of primi and secondi. We’ve enjoyed fish, shellfish, venison, quail, veal and duck as well as beautiful vegetarian dishes. I could go on but I won’t.
The clientele are from all over, although I am certain we are the only Americans on the property and probably the only native English speakers. Christmas morning we enjoyed hearing greetings of Joyeux Noel, Fröhliche Weinachten, and Buon Natale.
There is a shuttle to take us on demand to the lifts or to the village center. There is a spa including outdoor heated pool, which we have not had time to try. The only thing missing was snow, until today (Saturday) when it started during our hike and continued for about 8 hours.
Finally snow to compliment the lights, Hotel Albion.
Steam rises from the infinity pool while snow falls.
Our table at Hotel Albion, overlooking tiny Ortisei.
We took a woodsy walk in lightly falling snow on Saturday. Finally fresh snow!
Ric said I needed to be seen in something not pink. See? I have a blue fleece too.
This is our fourth Christmas in Italy, starting with our 2011 vacation here and now three years as residents. Family and friends, we miss you very much, especially at this time of year. We have traded greetings with many of you and have kept up on Facebook , which has been fun.  We keep ourselves entertained, but truly look forward to your visits here next year and to our planned extended visit to the U.S. in August. (Here we come, Seattle, Portland, and Durango!)
Here you see the plateau we hiked on Dec 24, Rasciesa. The view is from another peak, Seceda. The little black square is the rifugio where we ate lunch. See prior post.
Until the next time I think of something to say, Auguri e Buone Feste from both of us! May you have a blessed Anno Nuovo.

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Looking for a winter wonderland

25 Dec
Remember the scene in the movie “White Christmas” where they get off the train in Vermont and there’s no snow? That’s what it was like to arrive in Ortisei two days ago. Normally Ortisei should be a hotbed of skiing, snowshoeing and sleigh rides. Apparently much of the Alpine region from Switzerland to the Italian Dolomites is like this: cold and dry.
From our room we have a fabulous view to snowy peaks, but the surrounding valley is a dry winterscape.
From our room we have a fabulous view to snowy peaks, but the surrounding valley is a dry winterscape.
We have been to Ortisei three times in the summer and despite the lack of snow we still find it charming. Up high (2100 meters or so) we did manage to find a snowy trail for our Christmas Eve hike. People are here to ski and in the high areas they do so. While having lunch at the rifugio we met a group of Americans planning to ski the Sella-Ronda on Christmas Day. Three of them were Portlanders! Click on any picture for a slide show. 

 

Buon Natale tutti! 

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The silver lining trip

28 Oct
Call it licking our wounds, making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, or the silver lining to the storm cloud, we took refuge in a trip to the Cinque Terre in place of our long-planned-recently-aborted trip to the U.S.
In October of 2010, 2012, and 2013, we made sojourns to the Cinque Terre, but 2014 was to be the 2+ week trip to America to see friends and family, as well as attend our nephew’s wedding.  We would skip the almost-annual fall hiking trip. Since we could not go to the U.S., and since the weather in October was not only holding steady in Rome but improving in the north, we found a last minute rental in Manarola and headed out last Wednesday, with promise of sun and moderate temps.
Wind-whipped day on the Belvedere, Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy.
Wind-whipped day on the Belvedere, Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy.
We were not alone: the hoards have not let up their hold on the cute little villages. First clue was the mobbed train from La Spezia to Manarola on a Wednesday. The sea was rough so the boats that relieve train congestion did not run, making the train all the more fun. Luckily we had only an 11 minute train ride as we had to stand in the vestibule of the train as it chugged through the tunnels. In Manarola we found Andrea waiting as promised to lead us to our apartment. What providence for both of us! For Andrea to have a five night end-of-season rental, and for us to find such a great place that met or exceeded all of our criteria: Less than 100 Euro per night, WIFI, clothes washer, view of the sea, less than 50 stairs to climb, and a place to make coffee in the morning before the bars open. (I added the 50 stairs criteria after a couple of trips where we had 70 or 80 stairs to climb each time we came-and-went from our room or apartment and we decided we prefer spending our energy hiking or exploring a city, not in climbing to and from our lodging.) Andrea’s place is a large one bedroom with two matrimonial beds, and the possibility of renting two additional bedrooms one level down. Could be great for a large family.
People complain that the Cinque Terre is too crowded and touristy. It does seem these little villages are loved a bit too much by non-Italians. Interestingly, the majority of travelers here right now are French, German, Australian, and British. We have run into very few North Americans. While the five villages are cheek-by-jowl with tourists during the daytime, evenings are serene, restaurants can accommodate those of us staying the night, and we have once again found places to venture where few of those passing through bother to tread.
Instead of the famous Sentiero Azzuro between the towns, we headed up up up to Il Santuario di Nostra Signora di Reggio (The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Reggio).  We saw one person at the top, and four on the way down. A far cry from the masses on the coastal trail.  Click on any picture for a slide show.
We also headed to Portovenere, which has been on our list for the past three visits. The best way to Portovenere is by ferry, and when the wind is up they do not run. Friday there was a nationwide train strike from 09:00-17:00, so it seemed like a perfect day for a boat trip. We heard nothing but Italian and German in Portovenere. That is to say the tourists were European, not North American, for the most part. It is a fascinating little city with 2600 years of history. The Romans had huge influence, of course. There is a castle, a cemetery with a view, and the lovely Church of San Lorenzo, complete with fresco of his gruesome martyrdom. Returning to our little base in Manarola we could not believe how teaming it was with people after a peaceful day in Portvenere.
Another bucket-list location for us in Liguria was Camogli. I wanted to do the hike from there to the Abbey at San Fruttuoso. Alas, it will remain on the bucket list as the weather report for the planned excursion day showed temps barely above freezing and light rain. We are not sure if the weather report we pulled up was wrong, but we dared not take the chance on a 75 minute one way train trip to find we could not hike. So we headed to La Spezia, which is “the big city” in these parts. Only 11 minutes from Manarola by train, it is of a decidedly different character, but has some redeemable charms. There is an excellent Naval Museum, a beautiful waterfront passeggiata, and a significant pedestrian shopping area no doubt designed to attract the cruise ship visitors that spend the day there. All-in-all we had a good city hike, logging almost 16,000 steps on the pedometer.
Our final day was spent repeating a hike we took two years ago, a hike that gave us some problems at that time. We took a little bio-diesel bus from Manarola up to the tinier hillside village of Volastra. From there we hiked mostly level through vineyards and forest, although our mostly level track had a precipitous drop-off. The final hour was a somewhat technical descent due to a rocky path and awkward footing. Luckily we had good hiking shoes and our walking sticks along.
The special trail shoes and sticks are newly added to our gear, partially as a result of hiking this route two years ago. We had hikers on then, but not trail shoes made for this terrain. The shoes we had then tended to slip and made for some scary moments. The hiking sticks we have pooh-poohed in the past suddenly seemed like a good idea, and we adopted them as well as good trail shoes. We were very proud of ourselves for making this hike again and with proper gear. It was a hell of a workout, but we were safer for the gear. Once again, a lightly traveled route as so few people make their way to the higher trails.
And so we close out a fourth trip to the Cinque Terre. I cannot imagine coming here in the summer when it is even busier, when it is hotter.  It’s lovely to be recognized in restaurants that are not completely slammed, to have servers take their time and be able to linger a bit, to get an off-season rate on an apartment. We would have preferred to be in the U.S. as originally planned as we will not be able to make that trip now for several months, but we found this a nice way heal our disappointment.

 

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Compare & contrast

14 Sep
We were enchanted by The Lauterbrunnen Valley in the Berner-Oberland of Switzerland when we visited last winter (see New Year New Country), so upon our return to Rome in January we decided we needed to see the area without snow. Our return trip happened over American Labor Day weekend. What a beautiful area, with wildflowers blooming, snowy peaks, and perfectly clean little towns! What was really fun was to experience the differences between the area in the two seasons.
Ric at Mannlichen, bitingly cold wind

Ric at Mannlichen, bitingly cold wind

Similar view, same hill in the background, a little milder, with cow doo doo, in summer

Similar view, same hill in the background, a little milder, with cow doo doo, in summer

Obviously snow versus no snow was a huge difference, although our last morning we awoke to a temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit, and new snow in the mountains: a bit nippy for September 1.  We also found the crowds to be significantly less. Gondolas were never full. Trains were never full.  Trails were no more crowded than in winter, and restaurants were sparsely attended.  We thought summer would be high season, crawling with people but were delighted to find little Mürren uncrowded.
Mannlichen is above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, reached vis gondola and is a great ski area in winter.

Mannlichen is above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, reached via gondola and is a great ski area in winter.

Mannlichen summit in summer, similar perspective. Gondolas ferry hikers.

Mannlichen summit in summer, similar perspective. Gondolas ferry hikers.

 

Kleine Scheidigg is the jump off point for skiing in winter, and the train to the Jungfraujoch year-round.

Kleine Scheidigg is the jump off point for skiing in winter, and the train to the Jungfraujoch year-round.

Sames trains, but fewer people in summer, at least when we were there.

Sames trains, but fewer people in summer, at least when we were there.

 

An interesting contrast was the make-up of the traveling population we encountered. Last winter there were hundreds of Japanese tourists. They did not seem to be among the skiers, but were happily riding gondolas and cog railways to experience the view and the snow. In summer we found more Swiss from other parts of the country enjoying the area, some folks who were dressed much like the Amish in America (they might have been German), and an amazing number of people we presumed to be from Islamic countries based on the dress of the women, which ranged from a simple hajab to abaya and niqab. We do not see this much in Rome, so I was surprised to see so many observant Muslims dressed so in Switzerland.  We also saw or met many Chinese, a few Japanese, some French, some Americans, Canadians, an Israeli, but no Italians at all.
Murren in winter.

Murren in winter.

Roughly same view in summer

Roughly same view in summer

 
I must say Switzerland is more expensive than Italy, so no doubt the Italians prefer the Dolomites. In Mürren we found a ½ bottle of wine was upwards of €25 (about $32) in a restaurant. A simple dinner of pizza, wine and salad was easily €62, about $80. In Rome, we can eat the same dinner for as little as €35 ($45). At least visiting Switzerland made us feel better about prices in Rome, as bad as they can be.
A rare photo together. A nice Swiss family we met snapped this for us. If it wasn't foggy you;d see amazing mountains behind us.

A rare photo together. A nice Swiss family we met snapped this for us. If it wasn’t foggy you’d see amazing mountains behind us.

Chamois grazing near Murren. They hang out along the narrow gauge rail line then bound off when the train comes.

Chamois grazing near Murren. They hang out along the narrow gauge rail line then bound off when the train comes.

We would like to hike in Switzerland again, but will probably choose a self-catering apartment and cook some meals. That’s a real contrast to our usual mode of travel!

 

One morning we woke up to dense fog, but the other side of the valley was fine.

One morning we woke up to dense fog, but the other side of the valley was fine.

Murren is a very pretty, serene town, but not easy to reach: 5 trains and a gondola lift from Rome to Murren.

Murren is a very pretty, serene town, but not easy to reach: 5 trains and a gondola lift from Rome to Murren.

The Jungfrau Railway "Top of Europe" attracts THOUSANDS of visitors a year who pay upward of $200 to take the ride.

The Jungfrau Railway “Top of Europe” attracts THOUSANDS of visitors each year who pay upward of $200 to take the ride.

This little train chugs to the highest railway station in Europe. Many people come here solely to do this. Maybe next time for us.

This is the little train that chugs to the highest railway station in Europe. Many people come here solely to do this and neither hike nor ski. Maybe next time for us.

We frequently hiked through grazing herds of cows

We frequently hiked through grazing herds of cows.

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Good morning, Ortisei!

1 Aug
Good Day Rome is on-the-road this week. We head back to Rome this evening, but I wanted to share a few pictures from the last couple of days. We are traveling with our Seattle-based niece, nephew and their children.  Hoping Grandma Deb, who is cycling across the U.S. this summer, has a chance to see these pics of her grandchildren and their time in the mountains.
Sunrise on the Sella Group and the Sassolungo, towering over Ortisei, Italy, as seen from our terrace.
Sunrise on the Sella Group and the Sassolungo, towering over Ortisei, Italy, as seen from our terrace.
Across the Val Gardena, viewed from our apartment, the tiny village of Bulla. Every trip I say we need to go there. I find it enchanting. Maybe next time....
Across the Val Gardena, viewed from our apartment, the tiny village of Bulla. Every trip I say we need to go there. I find it enchanting. Maybe next time….
High above the Val Gardena, William, Elizabeth and John head down the trail. It was a chilly 13 Centrigrade.
High above the Val Gardena, William, Elizabeth and John head down the trail. It was a chilly 13 Centigrade.
Ric in front of the rifugio at Raciesa, high above the Val Gardena. Lovely stop for

Ric in front of the rifugio at Rasciesa, high above the Val Gardena. Lovely stop for “elevensies” of coffee, hot chocolate and berry crostada. Yes, it was cold enough for hot chocolate.

Elizabeth cannot resist the flower displays. The Val Gardena is well-named.

Elizabeth cannot resist the flower displays. The Val Gardena is well-named.

Horses and cows cross paths with hikers at Raciesa. We encountered a herd of about a dozen horses looking for handouts and petting. William said it was the highlight of the hike for him.
Horses and cows cross paths with hikers at Rasciesa. We encountered a herd of about a dozen horses looking for handouts and petting. William said it was the highlight of the hike for him.
Caught Elizabeth in a candid moment, bundled up against a chilly breeze at the high altitude. In the valley we did not need jackets.
Caught Elizabeth in a candid moment, bundled up against a chilly breeze at the high altitude. In the valley we did not need jackets.
Susan, Elizabeth, John and William riding the funicolare to Raciesa, Val Gardena.
Susan, Elizabeth, John and William riding the funicolare to Rasciesa, Val Gardena.
The horses were very friendly. No doubt looking for apples and carrots. John, Elizabeth and William (hidden) offer some pets.
The horses were very friendly. No doubt looking for apples and carrots. John, Elizabeth and William (hidden) offer some pets.
Ciao tutti! If you haven't been here, you should put it on your list!
Ciao tutti! If you haven’t been here, you should put it on your list!

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