Skiing Italian Style!

Last weekend I took a little trip to go visit my cousin Lisa and her husband Benson in Italy. It was a great weekend of skiing, Italian food, and a bit of military persuasion mixed it! I arrived Friday morning in Milan and Lisa and I drove towards their little town outside of Venice. We made a stop at ‘Post’ on the way, marking my 1st experience on an active International US Military base. It was very exciting! It was sort of like a little American commune with its own hospital, schools, post office, grocery store etc. and where Lisa and Benson both work as well. Then right outside the guarded gates is small town Italy!

The Kelly-Hart's live right below this Church steeple

We then headed to their cute little town and the weather was great so I enjoyed a nice lunch and a long run (ending in me being chased by a little dog). Later we had dinner at their friends’ house and had a good night sleep for the skiing ahead. Of course before bed I had to get a bit of American TV in and very much enjoyed the many military ads and PSA’s which replace commercials (ie 'I will not use smokeless tobacco, drink and drive, abuse my spouse, or dress overly American while abroad - but I may join the military and seek counseling for PTSD'). Ok I joke but it was very cool and interesting to see the military life-style.

Onto the ski trip! Lisa and I headed out on a girls ski weekend. Saturday started out lovely with a few hr drive into the Dolomites of Northern Italy. The mountains were absolutely gorgeous and the skies were a perfect blue. Despite the narrow and curvy roads up in the mountains the drive was quite nice until a certain traumatizing incident... (queezy stomachs move onto the next paragraph!). We were driving along, and got quickly passed on a corner in typical Italian fashion, when we then see Bambi prance into the road... the aggressive SUV that had passed us plowed into her and didn’t even flinch! Though the scence was extremely disturbing we were very lucky no one was hurt (except Bambi). I haven't seen anything like it before.


Finally the skiing. So we skied the 1st day at Araba/Marmalada. It was a massive resort, connected as they all are to many other seemingly endless skiable mountains. The day was amazing, snow was great, powder was plentiful! At one point we had to take 3 cable cars to get to the top of Marmalada (3.3K m, a glacier!). The most exciting part of the day was when Lisa and I decided to ski a bit of what they call ‘off pista’ I think- backcountry or off trail basically. We found this epicly massive powder bowl for which we were the partakers! Ultimately I think it was worth it, however the hike back to civilization (though done by a few other tracks earlier that day) was very sketch and time consuming to say the least. All in all, a great ski day!

Lisa and I with a view that almost reminded me of a snow covered Grand Canyon

Lisa coming down solo in the pow!

We then headed about an hr away to Cortina, where we stayed in this old very nice, but kinda creepy hotel overlooking the mountains. Since the guys couldn’t join us we had a 2-rooom suite... it was awesome! Of course we were so exhausted so we had some good Italian and fell asleep.

Sunday we skied the famous Cortina and again it was a picture perfect day! The top had a great view and skiing was great again. Not too much to say here, just a great day... We headed back after skiing, had some good pizza for din, and wrapped up the weekend. I headed back to flat 'ol Dublin on Monday... wishing I was still in the Dolomites!

Cable Cars

Me at the top of Cortina