Valentine's day fell on a Saturday this year, and while we're not into the flowers and chocolate routine we were happy to have a holiday to celebrate with a trip. Francesca and Davide had been here the weekend before (well a bit more than the weekend as they were snowed in for a few days!) and we made plans to fly to Turin to stay with Francesca on Friday night and head up to Sestriere with Davide Saturday morning to ski.
All went smoothly until we got up to the slopes and rented our gear. The shop had skis and boots straight from the 80's (my awesome white and teal nordica's reminded me of the first pair I got for Christmas), and when Sloane attempted to put on his skis one of his bindings actually fell off! We were able to overcome our gear issues and get on the mountain to enjoy the beautiful day before we stopped for an incredible lunch. Davide informed us that the traditional Italian ski dish is venison and polenta (and it looked great) but Sloane and I were craving a pizza and it didn't dissapoint.
Unfortunatly after we got back on the slopes Sloane's boots were really hurting him, so he went back to get new ones and decided to call it a day. Davide and I decided to ski the rest of the day and meet Sloane after the lifts closed. Davide is a great skier and knew the area really well so I had a great time skiing with him!
Sestriere is where they hosted most of the downhill skiing events in the Turin winter olympics and while the town isn't as picturesque as some we'd been to in Switzerland the skiing was perfect!
Davide and I were on the slopes until they closed and we met a refreshed Sloane for a little apres ski. Davide introduced Sloane to an Italian apres ski specialty called a bombardino, it might look small but after knocking back a few of them Sloane was feeling no pain.
After a few drinks we said goodbye to Davide who went back to Turin and headed back to our hotel. The hotel Miramonte was simple but the staff weren't very friendly and not very helpful (we were about to find out how unhelpful the next day). It did have a very nice resturant in the basement were we enjoyed a nice romantic valentines day dinner with an amazing bottle of Barbera wine!
The next day armed with a pair of new boots Sloane was ready to go and we set out to tackle the slopes!
It was another perfect ski day and by the time we had to head in to catch the bus back to Turin we were wishing we had a few more days to spend there.
Unfortunatly the trip back to Turin didn't go quite as expected (thank you Hotel Miramonte). To make a long story short Sloane ended up running all over the town trying to find bus tickets, we missed our bus, he lost his blackberry and when we finally did end up on a bus we ended up stuck in over an hour of bumper to bumper traffic. We had planned on meeting Francesca and her mother back in Turin for dinner before we headed to the airport, but at this point we were potentially going to miss our flight. Traffic cleared in time for us to meet Francesca and her mother who thankfully were able to get us to the airport in time to catch our flight.
After we had a bit of time to reflect on the trip we'd offer this advice to anyone considering a ski trip in the alps and debating Italy vs. Switzerland. Italy clearly wins on the food, apres ski it's a tie (I love gluvine in Switzerland but the Italian coffee drinks win for Sloane), transportation far and away goes to Switzerland who's efficient rail systems and helpful people making the trip all the more enjoyable (and which we learned can also make or break a trip), and, most importantly, the actual skiing was best in Italy.
