worth it Archives - Dave and Sara’s Excellent 2018 Adventure

Pizza, Pasta, and Gelato

By Dave and Sara on Friday, March 30, 2018

Today is sadly our last day of the Sabbatical. We started the day by heading to the Palzzao Fortuny Museum. The museum was quite cool. It was the personal Palazzo of the Artist Fortuny. They had a few other exhibits but the building itself was really cool. The special exhibit was of Zoran Music. Honestly, (this is Dave), I did not think his art was that impressive. Sara liked it though. The permanent exhibit I thought was really cool. Fortuny designed a few theaters and there were models he developed which I also thought were really cool.

After visiting the museum, we headed to grab some Pizza. We headed over to Birreria La Corte. It was one of the few pizzerias on Venice that are allowed to burn wood. Most are restricted to gas due to fire danger. The pizza was quite delicious.

With the Pizza finished, we headed out to run some errands. Even though our planned destinations were only a few 100 meters away, with poor directions each stop took about 15-20 minutes to get to. One of the important stops was to grab some Gelato. We took this shot of relaxing gondoliers as we ate it.

Tonight we have a massage, followed by heading back to Osteria 4 Feri for some pasta and seafood. Tomorrow morning we take the water taxi back to the airport and fly back to the States. Because it was our last day it was important to us to make sure to eat Pizza, Pasta, and Gelato one last time.

Overall, this has been quite an amazing experience. In numbers we have done:

300+ Miles of Walking
4000+ km of driving
60+ Bottles of Wine (not all betweeen just the two of us)
5 Cases of Wine successfuly shipped home
100+ new words Dave has already forgotten in Italian
3 Countries Visited
6 Ski Resort Slayed
40 Euro lost at gas stations
All of the Pizza, Pasta, and Cheese Consumed
0 days we didn’t talk at length about what Joe and Penny were doing

60 days is a long time to spend on vacation. Luckily, we both agree if we were to do it over again, there is not much we would have changed. The skiing was epic and the road trip was an incredible experience. An interesting perspective is that it is rare for couples to spend 60 days without separation with their partner. Usually you have to wait until retirement for that and even then you likely have some alone time when one runs out. Luckily, Sara and I really enjoyed spending the time with each other. Neither of us felt like we needed time apart or a break which I think is good.

I am very thankful for all of the hard work that Sara put in to earn this Sabbatical. Hopefully we get to do it again sometime in the future. What a long, strange trip it’s been and we can’t for the next one.

Alla prossima, Europe.

Italy Road Trip

Quiet Day

By Dave and Sara on Thursday, March 29, 2018

This morning we woke up a bit earlier than usual to hit the gym. After running for a half hour we headed up for breakfast before hitting the town.

We set out on a walk with no particular destination in mind. We started by crossing the Academia bridge and journeyed around until we crossed the Rialto. The Academia bridge is currently being restored. Our trip took us through the neighborhoods of Dosoduro and Santa Croce.

After walking for about three to four hours we stumbled in to a wine bar, Vino Vero, we found on our last trip. It was one of the highlights of our last trip so we were excited to find it again. They have tons of bruschettas. They also advertise that they don’t have spritz because they love wine. Their selection is quite good both by the glass and bottle which they sell to take away as well. It’s along the Fondamenta Misericordia in Canneregio.

After we finished at Vino Vero we started to make our way leisurely back towards the hotel. We stopped at another bar on the way for more snacks. It’s like tapas in Barcelona where you can eat a little bite and then move on and eat a little more. All delicious bites on toast and a reason to stop for a little while on the walk. In the second bar we met a law student from Israel who lives in Bologna but comes to Venice to buy his supplies for Passover. The ghetto in Venice is still one of the largest Jewish communities in Italy. Nice guy, bought us each a little shooter of wine they drink here called an ‘Ombra.’ (Note: top photo is from google just to show what the ‘Ombra’ looks like)

Our day of laying low had us walking over 20,000 steps. We enjoyed many bars and was able to escape most of the rain. Also tonight we are expecting 1.2 meters of Aqua Alta around 11:30PM so the walkways are up. As we passed through San Marco the water was already bubbling up through the storm grates across the piazza. Gladly we will be back safely at our hotel before the alarm rings. (Anything over 110cm of high tide the alarm rings all over Venice to let people know it’s coming so they can get to where they need to be.) The walkways cover heavily trafficked routes in the the areas that are most prone to flooding.

Tomorrow is our last full day of the Sabbatical and we are understandably sad to see it end. Tomorrow we will try to get emotional and “shmoopy” about the trip unless we get too busy. If that happens you all will have to wait.

Italy Road Trip

I Guess We Are Shipping Wine

By Dave and Sara on Tuesday, March 6, 2018

After struggling to find something to eat for lunch yesterday and enjoying our home aperitivo, we headed on the town to find something to eat for dinner. We ended up at Ristorante La Bricola next door to where we ate dinner the first night. To be honest, we were a bit underwhelmed by the food. Additionally, the bottle of wine we got was border line turned, but we waited too long before we both agreed it wasn’t good.

This morning we woke up and saw that a glimmer of hope that the rain would finally subside. Unfortunately, we were wrong.

Luckily for us, we had a fun day planned of wine tasting and eating Italian food so it didn’t matter what the weather was like. Our first stop was Montemecurio just outside of town. When we pulled up, a scruffy teenager with an eye patch wearing sweat pants answered the door and looked at us very confused. Concerned we had pulled up to somebody’s house and not a winery, we started to slowly backup. In broken English, the teenager told us to wait. After waiting outside the front door for two minutes, Irene came out and welcomed us into the house. While it looked like a house, it was indeed the correct place. The wine operation consists of 3 people. One for the field, one for the winery, and one for the office. Irene was an absolute pleasure to taste with. She was quite gregarious and loved talking with us about skiing. She stressed the importance of a bit of grappa before you hit the slopes. Here we tasted 6 bottles of wine include a white and rose which is very rare in this red dominated region. Everything was delicious and so affordable. We ended up walking away with a half case.

After our first tasting, we headed to our lunch reservation in Monticchiello at Osteria La Porta.

Apparently, most people come to this little hill top village just for this restaraunt. We were not disappointed. Between the bacalla appetizier or the Cacio Pepe Gnocchi, everything was so good. The atmosphere was also quite fun with a young temptress sitting behind us attempting to seduce the young waiter. This included passing notes and lots of giggling. Sara said she could have dressed cuter. The staff was also quite generous here, they even gave us our half liter of wine for free.

After lunch, we headed back to the apartment for a quick rest before our next tasting. Dave fell asleep during this time for a few minutes, because as you know, tasting wine is exhausting. Refreshed and ready to go, we headed up to Gattevechi which is located right in town.

We met Daniela who is the one of three siblings who run the winery. In addition to working in the family business, Daniela used to teach Italian to foreign students at a school in Montepulciano so she was very excited about speaking with Sara and complimented her quite a bit on her Italian. They also spoke about their shared interest in vintage Cinecitta films. Similar to other places in town, they had an extensive cellar that dates back to 300 BC.

After touring their small crypt, we tasted the wines. Again, everything was quite good. Daniella offered to help us ship all of our wine back including the bottles we purchased at other locations.

All in all, we ended up with two cases.

During our tasting, it finally stopped raining and the sun came out. We now sit in our apartment for one last night and are looking at a beautiful sunset. Tonight we are going to cook in.

Tomorrow we head to Assisi.

Italy Road Trip

Milan Day 1

By Dave and Sara on Sunday, February 25, 2018

Saturday morning we said good bye for now to the Alps as we will surely be back. The whole group agreed that Monterosa and Aosta Valley are truly beautiful and a great place to visit, we all want to go back again. In the morning when we woke up there was about 6 inches of fresh light powder on the cars which made it even harder for us to close the skiing chapter of our trip. Originally when we booked the trip we thought 3 weeks of skiing may be too much but after 15 days on the mountain we still weren’t over it, especially with 6 inches of beautiful powder. But Milan was calling so off we went.

The drive down from the Alps was very beautiful until we got into the periphery of Milan which is quite industrial. As expected, Milan was quite hectic getting in to town. As we may or may not have mentioned, Alitalia had lost Nate’s bag. After a week of promising to deliver it in Champoluc, he had to drive back to the airport to retrieve it. The initial plan was to have Nate, Christine, Jeff, and Karen head to the airport to grab Nate’s bag and to drop off their car, while Sara and Dave headed to the apartment to check in and drop off everybody’s bag.

When Sara and Dave got to the apartment, we got all checked in and started bringing the bags in. We thought the elevator would work but unfortunately with the bags in the elevator, it would not go to the second floor. Therefore, Dave carried everybody’s bags up to the second floor. It was exhausting. After unloading the bags, we were going to wait for Nate, Christine, Jeff, and Karen to get back; however, there was no place to park the car without a permit. Instead, Sara and Dave headed to drop-off the car at the Train Station. This drive took us all the way across the city. The map said 15 minutes but it took closer to 45 minutes. After dropping off the car, we decided to instead take the Subway back.

Once we got back to the apartment we ate a quick Pizza and headed off to the Duomo.

While visiting the Duomo, we saw a far right fascist speaker’s stage getting taken down from an earlier rally in the square. While we were there, we also thought we saw Batman:

After checking out the outside, we headed to the Inter Store to get our tickets for the evening. With tickets for the game in hand, we had some serious business to take care of including Spritz.

Arriving at the stadium, we were in awe of how large it is. It holds 86,000 people. Even though the game was not that croweded, there were still of a ton of people there.

Inter Milan won out over Benevento 2-0. The game was exciting and the goals happened right in front of our seats which were great. After we got back to our neighborhood it was close to midnight. We headed to a bar in search of refreshments and snacks. After a few glasses of wine, we called it a night.

Today we plan to enjoy some siteseeing around town.

Champoluc Zermatt

Heliskiing Revisted

By Dave and Sara on Thursday, February 22, 2018

So we were pretty tired yesterday, so we left a very short post. Sorry about that, we were really tired. So here is how yesterday went.

Jeff, Sara, and Dave woke up and were all nervously excited about our day ahead. We got dressed and under Dave’s direction showed up to our first lift 30 minutes early. We took the funicular up followed by two chairs. Once we got to the top, we had a short hike to reach the area where the helicopter picks us up. We met our guide Loris and he took all of our skis and tied them in to a bundle. As the helicopter arrived our skis were placed in the rack and we all jumped aboard. Within seconds, the helicopter was off. As we pulled away, the force of acceleration and turning was quite intense and we all looked at each other in excitement. The video yesterday doesn’t really do justice to how amazing the view was, weaving in and out of the peaks just below 14K feet. Once we got to the top, we quickly unloaded and dropped to the ground to allow for the helicopter to take off. The whole process was quite organized with the helicopter only on the ground for pickup/drop off for no longer than 15 seconds. The ride was so short we thought there might have been a mix up and that we weren’t actually going to drop down into Zermatt but we were actually in the right place, high up along a ridge line separating Italy and Switzerland.

From there, we clipped into our skis and started a very long traverse around the peak to reach the Col that drops into Zermatt. At the top of the Col as the resort came into view, we realized how much higher we were than the Klien Matterhorn Tram which is the highest ski lift in Europe (3800m). Once we finished our traverse the wide open Col was somewhat chopped up but the snow conditions were quite nice. The powder was maybe mid shin deep. Once we got a bit lower, our guide took us off the beaten path to an area of wide open untracked powder. He said he preferred not to follow the tracks. We said that was fine by us.

There wasn’t anywhere to place a Jake sticker in all that wide open but we brought one just the same.

Once we got to the bottom of the glacier we were back in Zermatt where had we started our trip back on February 2nd. It was quite surreal to be back on the lifts where we started this trip. We took the Matterhorn Glacier Express and the Klien Matterhorn backup to the top and headed towards Cervinia to ski back to Champoluc. As this area sits in the sun all day, the snow was quite crunchy. Also, it was quite cold at -24C. We ended up deciding to skip lunch to try to take advantage of what good conditions remained. We chowed down a cliff bar and after a brief pause at the edge of Cervinia headed back down the hill. While the snow conditions weren’t great, the skiing was still very fun and the terrain stunning. We crossed glaciers, frozen rivers, forests, abandoned stone buildings and an old aqueduct. The end of the run was a very long traverse that took us back to the last town in the Ayas valley, Saint Jacques, just above Champoluc. By this time, Dave’s legs were completely destroyed and quite tired from all the long days of skiing. Luckily we made it to the bottom of the hill unscathed. At the bottom, we walked over to the bar to grab a spritz to finish out the day. With the purchase of the spritz came a ride in the Fiat Panda back to the parking lot where we had left the car. All in all we skied 40 Km across two countries and three resorts. Pretty rad day!

Overall, heliskiing was amazing. If we had unlimited funds, it would definitely be our new preferred way to access ski terrain.

Today we had a fun, mellow day on piste with Jeff, Christine and Nate. It’s snowing pretty hard so visibility was low. Took it easy cruising around and then enjoyed a nice lunch. We love this place and it will be hard to leave.

Chamonix

Powder Days

By Dave and Sara on Monday, February 12, 2018

Last night we were able to decrease our number of grocery store runs. This is good because most everything was closed because it was Sunday. After enjoying a glass of wine next to some folks from Michigan, we headed home and Sara made a great penne pasta with smoked salmon and romanesco. It was delicious.

This morning we took the leftovers and made it into a fritatta. The perfect fuel for our day to come. It snowed most of the night and we decided to head out to Grand Montets earlier today. We were on the Base Tram before 8:30. The visibility remained poor but the conditions were amazing. There was knee deep to waist deep powder. That early in the morning we were able to get two runs on the mid mountain gondola that were basically untracked. The day prior, we made a reservation for the high mountain Tram at 11:05. We thought most of the snow would be tracked out but we were wrong. Nearly the whole run we were able to get fresh tracks. Following our first team ride we made another reservation for an hour later and grabbed some lunch. During lunch the sun came out and our second run on the tram was also amazing. Light fluffy powder. Unfortunately the GoPro died before the second tram ride but below are a few shots of our day today.

We’re having some technical issues getting video up which is a bummer because we took some sweet ones. Hoping to get them posted tomorrow. Until then here are some nice shots of Aiguille du Midi from when the weather cleared today in town.

Verbier

Last Day in Switzerland

By Dave and Sara on Friday, February 9, 2018

Tonight is our last night in Switzerland. It is sad to leave but our next adventure in France awaits us.

To recap from last night, we were planning to go out for some pizza at La Pergola. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they said that their pizza oven was broken. I am not sure that I believe them as others who ordered after we arrived were able to get Pizza. I think they were so busy that they were trying to disuade people from ordering pizzas to give the kitchen a break. As we couldn’t have pizza, we went for pasta instead. It was still quite good.

This morning, we headed back out to the mountain. As it hasn’t snowed in a few weeks the mountain is pretty chopped up. In fact, last night we learned that one of the yellow runs we took yesterday is known as being one of the longest mogul runs in the world. The moguls across the mountain were big. Some of them four to five feet tall it seemed. Anyways, on day six of skiing, Dave was having some troubles getting in the groove. At least there were some great views to be had. Below is a photo with Verbier at the base.

After skiing some off-piste next to the runs, we decided to try the last run we did yesterday this time with good visibility. The run was quite nice. The beginning started with large moguls, followed by a wide open bowl that had some nice snow in it. We descended in to the town of La Tzoumaz:

The path went down a winding road where after a while, there was an actual road with cars next to the run. The path continued to provide us with breathtaking views. The photo below shows the bowl that we skied down way off in the distance.

We also passed a really adorable cheese shop off the road.

Once we reached the town, we took the Gondola back up and headed to lunch on the mountain. We found a great chalet called Chez Clovis. We both had, of course, soup and enjoyed the beautiful views.

After lunch, we worked our way back to Verbier. We ended up taking this route that went right through the town. I am bummed we didn’t get a photo of it; however, they even had slots in the road, so you could ski across the asphalt without damaging your skis. You had to watch out for cars. There were also a couple times where you had to cross an active pomel horse lift. The run went through the chalets in town which I plan to buy a few of with all the money we are making off the stock market right now. Stocks are up, right?

After skiing, we headed back to the room to clean ourselves up. We then went to grab an Apres at Le Rouge. This was another recommendation from Sara’s friend.

Tonight as it is our last night in Switzerland we are of course going to eat some cheese. Off to eat Raclette at La Caveau.

Before we leave Switzerland, here are some of our closing thoughts:

You really do eat a lot of cheese.
If you ate meat, you would be very happy.
People here are very nice.
They aren’t lying when they say it is expensive.
In one part of the country everybody speaks German (Zermatt), then you drive 1 hour and everybody speaks French (Verbier).
Skiing many days without a washing machine results in a really stinky hotel room.
It gets cold here, -24C is a new low for these two California constitutions.
We would happily come back to both towns! Switzerland, its been a blast.

Zermatt

Skiing with a Guide Part 1

By Dave and Sara on Sunday, February 4, 2018

Today started as a great day. Dave finally woke up and didn’t feel extremely congested. After some breakfast, we met up with our guide for the day: David from Alpine Exposure. After a short walk we took the funicular up about 1000m followed by a cable car, followed by a very old tram. The tram itself is basically only there for guides and we were the only ones on it. Once we reached the top (3200m), it opened up on to a beautiful field of powder. As we skied it, I kept asking myself, where is everybody else? In California the snow would be all tracked out and there would be nothing soft left. Note: it has been over a week since they had much snow. While this area had some tracks, there was plenty of areas where we had long distances of completely untracked powder. The snow was a bit heavy here and it certainly was a thigh burner. Additionally, the runs were long. Very long. After two laps through this area it was already getting in to the afternoon. Below is a photo our guide took of Dave skiing out of a small coulier in powder.

Next stop was a quick break to warm up and hyrdate. We stopped at the Blue Lounge and had a hot water and lemon, and then we were off to try to eat lunch in Italy. Skiing from the western side of the mountain to the eastern side of the mountain takes at least an hour. That hour is all skiing. Once we got to the eastern side of the mountain, it was time to take the tram up to the top of the Matterhorn Glacier (3883m). This is the highest lift in all of Europe. Up here it was cold. I didn’t see a thermometer but it felt like it might have been colder than yesterday which was -11f. The elevation didn’t hit us too bad, but you could tell that you were feeling a bit loopy. From there we skied down to Italy and stopped for some lunch at the Rifugio Teodulo which was at 3317m. The combination of the altitude and not eating until almost 3pm made for a very interesting time. The bar was very cool. We sat on the guide side which is less fancy than the restaraunt but had much more character. We also learned that you can book rooms at this rifugio which also seemed really cool. We ate some sort of combination of semolina dumplings and French onion soup, and it was so good!

After refueling, it was time to head back towards Zermatt rushing to catch the last chair to bring us up for skiing some powder on the glacier on our way home. To be honest, Dave’s legs were very shot on this ride back to the town. It was about 4:30 and we had been skiing basically nothing but powder (some of which was heavy and/or chopped up) and his legs were dying. At this point, we ducked a rope and skied out on to the glacier to a wide open, untracked, powder field of powder that was much lighter. After skiing down it, we both commented that it was something we will remember for the rest of our lives. The skiing was super crusie-y and really fun! As we worked our way down, there got to be a point that Dave had to throw in the towel. He feared hurting himself as the skiing was somewhat technical and his legs did not have the gas left. Luckily before we stopped, we were able to get a picture of the three of us.

After making it to the next gondola, it was time to hitch a ride back to the village. We left the hotel at 9 am and got back at 5:30. It was a really long day. David was an awesome guide and we are hoping to ski with him again on Wednesday after they get a nice refresh of new snow tonight and tomorrow. Below is a map where I tried to remember what lifts we took and generally what we skied. Yellow are the lifts and the green is generally what we skied. I promise that this map does not do any justice on the shear distance we skied. I am guessing this is maybe the most vertical feet I have ever skied in a day.

After skiing we headed down to the spa in our hotel. Unfortunately, what we thought was a hot tub was more of a warm tub. Interestingly, it had these beds you lay on and it percolates ice cold water out of them. Maybe people are in to that, we were not. After a quick Sauna, we headed back to the room to drink some wine we purchased the day before. Also, it was coed naked, but us prude Americans wore our bathing suits.

Blog notes: I apologize about the large amount of text. Unfortunately, we were too busy skiing so we didn’t take many photos. Also, we will likely tag on our dinner experience on to tomorrow’s blog post as we are likely going to be too tired after we get back from dinner.

Ciao for now.

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