David, Author at Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

Yesterday and today we’ve been in Verona. Yesterday was fun because it was Palm Sunday and the city was full of people. We walked around quite a bit and saw the Arena from the outside and also Piazza delle Erbe where the city was hosting a kind of science/environmental fair for kids. The weather is nice and all the cafes and restaurants are full. We had a very light lunch at a cute tavern called Osteria Al La. We spent the early evening relaxing in the hotel, when we checked in we got upgraded to a suite that’s pretty spacious. It also is very heavy on the gold accents.

We had a seafood dinner at Osteria Bertoldo in the historic city center, we got a little turned around on the way there so we ended up seeing quite a bit of the center on the way. After dinner we finished with a nightcap at our hotel in front of the fireplace.

Today we went to Juliet’s balcony with all the school children in all of Italy who are apparently here today for a field trip. It was a brief visit. This isn’t a photo of the balcony but all of the walls near the balcony are covered in hearts.

This is the Castle.

We also went to the Arena which is still used a concert and opera venue. Unfortunately we are missing the upcoming production by a few days. Interestingly, the Arena has perfect acoustics so they don’t mike the productions. In fact, today we were way up at the top of the amphitheater and could hear one of the workmen sawing through a 2×4 down in the center.

Tomorrow we leave for Venice, our last stop (sad face).

Italy Road Trip

Osteria Francescana

By David on Sunday, March 25, 2018

We said we’d make the most of our last Saturday in Italy and we certainly did! When we booked the trip we put ourselves on the wait list for Osteria Francescana, an amazing looking restaurant by Massimo Battura that’s won all kinds of awards and is considered the number two restaurant in the world (we have heard maybe number one). It has three Michelin stars. We’ve seen it featured on a bunch of shows and the chef is an amazing artist with food. He also does a lot of good for the community and gives the impression of being a pretty cool guy. So on Friday when we called to see if we could get a place off the wait list we were shocked when they said yes to two schmoes like us.

We spent the whole day walking around and only had a salad so we would be good and hungry for the experience. The restaurant was right by our hotel so we walked over, it’s very unassuming from the outside. Inside it’s serious, all grey and dim lighting and fairly austere. The staff are all outfitted by Gucci. (Sara had to ask because their shirt collars had these big embroidered bees on them.)

Everyone who worked at the restaurant was welcoming and extremely professional. Also there didn’t seem to be any women waitresses (Note, there were many women chefs)? We both ordered the 12-course (Tutto) tasting menu with wine pairing and they adjusted it to replace all the meat dishes.

The whole experience was something to remember. All the food was outstanding and the wine pairing (which also included some non wine items like a fermented honey liquor and Yuzo) was interesting and unique.

Hands down the best part of the evening happened at the very end after we paid our bill and started walking home. Around the corner from the main entrance the kitchen door was propped open onto the street. Sara stopped to peak in and take a photo when one of the staff stepped out with the trash. They started chatting in Italian and he invited us in to take a photo with the whole crew! Unfortunately the head chef wasn’t there but still, it felt incredibly special to be welcomed into the prestigious kitchen so warmly. We will cherish this photo and the memory of truly a great night in the twilight of what has been a life changing trip for us. Another interesting note, as you can see in the photo people come from all over the world to train in one of the best kitchens. This photo likely contains the next hottest chefs we will all read about in the upcoming years, we hope.

We tried to take photos of all of the dishes but some had bites taken out and some we forgot. Below are those photos:

Today, we moved on to Verona.

Italy Road Trip

A long drive

By David on Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Today we had our longest drive back to the north, destinstion Bologna. We took out one short stay in the countryside and added a few days here because they weather turned cold again. Glad we did as this morning it snowed in Abruzzo but here in the city there is plenty to do even if the weather isn’t so nice. For most of the trip we followed the A14 right along the east coast of Italy. The beaches in this area don’t look so nice, or at least they didn’t today and the ocean was also quite agitated.

Bologna is a pretty cool town so we are off to explore before dinner. Tomorrow morning we booked a pasta cooking class so that should be fun.

We had a little bit of a crazy experience at Mailboxes etc trying to ship the wine back from Chieti. Hopefully we see it again!

Italy Road Trip

Change of Plans

By David on Thursday, March 1, 2018

This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland up in the little medieval village. The forecast had snow overnight but we were very surprised by how much stuck, about 10 cm by 7am when we first opened the shutters. It was going to be an interesting ride out down the hill to the highway.

As Dave was warming up the car we got a message from our Airbnb host at a farm in the hills above Lucca. They were completely snowed in and their road was impassable, a big snow storm like this really is out of the ordinary here and so they offered us a refund and recommended we stay in the city where the roads would be cleared. We decided to head straight to Florence and called the hotel where we had booked the weekend. They said no problem the room was ready so we said good bye to the little medieval village and started the drive down the hill.

Luckily Dave has lots of snow driving experience as the road was narrow, twisty and unplowed. We got about halfway down before we hit a small uphill section and couldn’t get traction. Unfortunately the chains the rental agency gave us did not fit the car so we had to go without. It took us about 30 minutes of trying to get up the small, steep incline without sliding accidentally off the side and down into the valley but we made it. After that it was pretty mellow down to the autostrada and then once we got on that it was really easy, everything had been freshly plowed and the road was completely clear as if it hadn’t snowed at all.

It took about 2 hours to get until Florence (a much easier experience than getting into Genova even with the weather.) All the schools are closed and a lot of offices so everyone was out and about playing with sleds and getting in snowball fights. Our hotel is very close to the historic center but has a private parking lot. The room is nice and comfortable with a pretty view of the hills.

We had a boatload of laundry to do so we found a laundromat and had a very nice lunch around the corner while we waited for everything to finish. Lunch was at Trattoria Cantinetta Allegri.

Now we are back at the apartment resting and warming up before heading out this evening to see some sights and have dinner.

Champoluc

Photos from our Ski Guide in Italy

By David on Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Here are all the photos from our ski guide the first two days at Monterosa.

Chamonix

Photos from our Ski Guide Yesterday

By David on Wednesday, February 14, 2018

After such an epic day yesterday, our legs were pretty tired today. We headed over to Grand Montets, again, where the reservations for the high tram were full (yes they have reservations). We decided to wait in-line (on-line?) for our first run. After about 25 minutes, we boarded the tram and headed up. The snow was still quite good but pretty chopped up. We were able to find some goods hidden and still had some fresh tracks. On the way down, we were able to find a location to put the sticker for Jake. We are thinking of him the whole time we are here. In the background of the photo is the Glacier d’Argentiere

After making our way down, we took the Gondola on the frontside back up. The frontside is a bit lower and much more chopped up. Dave did find a small 4 foot cliff to jump off which he did successfully. The highlight of our day will be our Valentine’s Day dinner at Hameau Albert 1er which is a 2 Michelin Star restaurant. Although, we won’t have any money left after, we are looking forwards to it.

As promised below are the photos from our ski guide yesterday (unedited). You can click on the photos and enter full screen.

Note: Leave us a comment if this works. The internet is really slow so it is hard to tell if it is working.

Chamonix

The Road Less Traveled

By David on Saturday, February 10, 2018

Today we took the long, scenic trip from Verbier to Chamonix. Normally this would be a 45 minutes to 1 hour drive via Martigny but this being the mountains, Mother Nature had other plans for us. A week or so before we left a huge mudslide took out the road and it’s closed until Spring. Dave posted on the Chamonix Facebook page asking for alternative routes so that we could avoid going all the way down to Geneva and a very nice person gave us the backroad way via Portes du Soliel and Cluses. Yesterday when we checked google maps, the app recommended that we go over into Italy and back through the Mont Blanc tunnel but since we are travelers with no set time limits we opted for the longer and what we hoped to be more scenic route through France.

It did not disappoint. Sweet little Alpine villages nestled into valleys along the Rhône River between dramatic peaks and snow covered larch forests, the road took us through the Haute Savoie region of France up over the Pas de Morgins.

On the way we stopped in Cluses, by far the largest town we drove through, at a giant Carrefour to load up on essentials and get a French SIM card. So far we’ve found it very easy and relatively inexpensive to get a local number and (at least some) data.

After leaving Cluses we joined one of the main highways for about 30 minutes before turning off for thr Mont Blanc Tunnel/Chamonix/Milan/Turin exit. We immediately started to climb again, passing though smaller tunnels, past frozen sheer rock faces and over waterfalls.

We arrived in Chamonix around 2, dropped our bags and groceries and went out to grab some lunch and check out the town. This time we are staying in an apartment with a kitchen and washing machine. It’s very centrally located to the Aiguille du Midi cable car and the center of town.

This town is very cute and it is full of hardcore mountain people. People who are strolling around with their touring skis, harnesses, climbing ropes and crampons like it’s just their regular thing they do on Saturday.

We had lunch at a pizza place called Restaurant Le Boccalatte with great people watching, the food was just ok. After lunch we walked up to the Main Street which has a store from every possible outdoor company you could imagine and lots of charcuterie shops. We stopped by a second grocery store to grab a few small extra items for the apartment then we headed back to the place to rest and do laundry.

We decided that we wanted to hire a guide for Tuesday after looking at the snow forecast and when the guide that was recommended to us by our guide in Zermatt was unavailable we went back into town to the Bureau of Guides to book one. Second trip, still early and still interesting.

Our French is non existent so it’s no surprise there was at least one misstep during the grocery store outing. Coming back to do laundry we realized that we had purchased fabric softener instead of detergent. Ooops…back into town for the correct bottle that could face our dirty ski clothes. This trip clearly cutting into our happy hour time was not as enjoyable.

This evening we cooked a dairy free dinner, attempted to do laundry and watched French Olympics coverage. Tomorrow will be our first day skiing in France.

Verbier

Above the clouds

By David on Thursday, February 8, 2018

Bonjour from Verbier!

We spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and walking around the town, it’s very different from Zermatt. Where Zermatt is down in a valley, Verbier is on the hill and more spread out with fancy chalets and hotels going up from the town center. It’s got a very different vibe too. The terrain reminds us a lot of Kirkwood or Deer Valley with a lot of fun off piste options and it’s steep too. We’ve seen many more skiers with alpine touring gear and even telemarkers than we did at Zermatt and the off piste areas seems more well tracked (although it hasn’t snowed since we got here so it might be looking like this in Zermatt too). So there’s a soul skier group. Then there are lots of well heeled Brits of all ages. In addition to the normal restaurants and apres bars that you’d expect in most resort towns there are also tons of nightclubs. Like DJ battle, EDM nightclubs.

Last night we had a lovely dinner at Aux Vieux Verbier recommended by one of Sara’s colleagues in LA (thanks Patrick!)

We also stumbled on a great wine store called Vinabagnes where we met some very nice locals who gave us recommendations on where to ski off piste and also let us taste the local wine from the Valais region of Switzerland. Wine is grown here on some pretty steep terrain, similar to what I’ve seen in Piemonte, and the earth is very minerally.

This morning we headed up the hill via the Medran gondola. Since we arrived there’s been an inversion with a very low cloud cover (this morning it was actually snowing in town) and clear blue skies at higher elevations. After the first gondola we took one more gondola and two trams, all the way to the top of the Mont Fort peak. Although we wanted to follow the alpine touring folks off the back we weren’t exactly sure how to make our way back to Verbier (one of the locals we met said it required an hour of skinning, the other said 20 minutes)and since we didn’t have skins and an hour hike seemed extreme we stuck to the front side. Still very fun and very beautiful.

We found a great place in the sun high above the clouds for Jake’s sticker. Thanks to everyone who helped me try to find a few more. A day before I left I found a few in a very random place at my house. I have no idea how they go there but once I found them I had enough for each stop on our trip.

After that we skied a bunch of different runs all over the mountain; they could use a good snow so a lot of crunchy bumps. We grabbed a late lunch of the hill (soup again cause Verbier is $$$$$) and then decided that we would take this long ‘yellow line*’ run down the valley and call it a day. Judging from the runs we had already done it looked like it would take us about 45 minutes to an hour. Perfect!

*A ‘yellow line’ is an off piste run that is marked in the center with neon yellow poles about every 20 ft. The skiable area is so massive off each lift that it’s easy to get lost, but more on that later.

Leaving lunch we followed a ridge line and topped into really fun stuff that took us down to a gate. Yea, the yellow line we planned to take down to the base was marked with a gate and a bunch of signage. Luckily it was open but still. We waited until we saw someone else go in and then we dropped in behind. The top of the run was fine, a little crunchy but still fun. We watched the skier in front of us disappear into a little gully, beyond the gully was a random cat track with really high walls on either side. Couldn’t see much of anything as we would our way down this cat track except that it looked really freaking steep on either side. Then we got to a giant sign that said a bunch of stuff in French and also don’t turn right, high avalanche danger. So we went forward a little bit and then visibility dropped a lot. We were in the clouds. Luckily two locals and a ski school instructor with a little kid came up behind us. The local guys went right and told us to follow them. The ski school dude and the little kid went straight. I’m not sure we made the right decision in hindsight because the local guys said the visibility was worse over there but we followed the ski school. We lost the ski school in the fog so stuck right to the poles, it was hard to see one past the other but we make a really good team and eventually got below the dense clouds and back onto the mountain run. After that we called it a day.

After skiing, we walked around town for a bit. We stopped by a local butcher and purchased some stinky cheese and bread to go with the wine we purchased yesterday for our hotel room apres-ski. We watched a bit of TV and waited for our next pizza adventure at dinner at La Pergola. I think all we are going to eat on this trip is melted cheese in some for. Tomorrow is our last day of skiing in Verbier and the. We are off to France on Saturday.

Verbier Zermatt

Next Stop Verbier

By David on Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Today was a fairly low key day for us. Before we get there, we should let you know about our dinner last night. We went to Restaurant Du Pont last night for some fondue. This was one of the oldest restaurants in Zermatt. Compared to Ferdinand’s earlier in the week, it was not as good; however, we were still happy to be eating cheese.

After eating dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pack and attempt to update the blog so images aren’t rotated. Unfortunately, there is a bug where it looks right on an iPad or iPhone but is flipped on a computer. I think we now have it fixed. We also worked on trying to get the subscribe option to work. Therefore, let us know if you get an email notification about this blog post or if you don’t.

This morning, we left the hotel in our electric chariot taking us to the train.

Today was our last time of making the transfer via train. The train was pulling in as we arrived at the station. Once loaded up we headed down the mountain to Tasch to pick up our car/minivan.

The car we got is 4×4 but unfortunately is quite big and ugly. We didn’t get a photo of it but we will at some point. I’ll use this for an example:

The drive from Tasch to Verbier was fairly grey. It looked like the views would have been nice but was mostly covered by either clouds, fog, or smog. We couldn’t tell. Anyways, here is a brief clip showing our drive in.

Once we got here, it was a little too late to hit the hill. Instead we went and grabbed some lunch at some sort of health food cafe that is part of the W Hotel. We both had bowls and I had a juice. It was nice to eat something healthy after eating so much cheese. The rest of the day is fairly uneventful. Mostly, laundry, settling in to the new hotel, and getting important supplies such as hotel wine. The one thing I will say about this hotel is it is not nearly as nice as Zermatt. That being said it will do for the three nights we are here.

Pre-Departure

We Haven’t Left Yet

By David on Tuesday, January 23, 2018