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Background: Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when the city-states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily, were united under King Victor EMMANUEL II. An era of parliamentary government came to a close in the early 1920s when Benito MUSSOLINI established a Fascist dictatorship. His disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed. Italy was a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, joining the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Persistent problems include illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north.

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By The Strachs
April 5th 2009

End of Season! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

St Patricks day in Gallaghers pub, Pila

Hi everyone This is what we got up to at the end of our season...... We had very few guests in our last few weeks which was a really odd way to finish the season. Our favourite week was our busiest when there were loads of guests and the slopes were busy and the village felt alive. However, it did allow us to have loads of visitors with whom we had great fun!!!! Steve Smith came to visit and we managed a 2am, 3am and a 4am finish helped by one evening where we were all in bed at 10.10pm. We [View Full Entry]

Graham and Steve on the long slow chair chat about how open they are to wearing colours other than the football teams they support!

Steve had beautiful clear skies for his days in Pila

We walked out to this cross which is at the highest point of the resort

By The Strachs
March 14th 2009

Three weeks till the end of our season! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

Life as a snowboarder involves lots of sitting down!

So what have we been up to......... Aileen tried snowboarding, she can't turn yet but give her time. We had our end of season jolly with the other reps from the valley in Champoluc. It was great to see so many work colleagues out of uniform, relaxed and having fun. We finished it off by heading to La Thuile for a night out, Graham enjoyed seeing the Man U v Inter game on Sky and Aileen enjoyed seeing a pub full of people which seldom happens in Pila. We topped the visit off by skiing La Thuile and Aileen finally had [View Full Entry]

The view from a snowboard is certainly different

Trying out my first chairlift on a board

By The Strachs
February 26th 2009

Halfway through the season...how did that happen! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

Our quiz for a 100 people, it was quite busy!

Ciao Tutti Gosh, its been a while but we have been busy! We are well and truly in the swing of things now, our week goes something like this........... Sunday - Transfer day...up at 5am ish Graham takes the first bus down to Turin and Aileen follows at about 7.30am. Normally Graham doesn't have to do any smiley doors (making a good first impression on customers) at the airport as he is on the bus again taking guests back to Pila. He gets back in the early afternoon and sorts out all the lift passes. We have targets to meet so [View Full Entry]

Aileen thought she would get some work done while she waited for Graham. It was H and S work so she thought some precautions were required.

By The Strachs
January 22nd 2009

Getting into the swing of it! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

BabyJames

Hello! Well, we are five weeks into it with guests and it is going really well. I love the guest side of things and Graham is doing really well with the ski guiding part of it. He has guided in Courmayeur and La Thuile now...long ski days but fun at the same time. He finds the Monday morning ski guiding a bit hectic as we nomally have a really late night on Sunday and there is lots of paperwork to do. We did manage to do our paperwork on the Sunday night this week though and we both went off ski [View Full Entry]

We managed to ski with Stuart and Lynne most days

Stuart and Lynne loved our favourite cafe

By The Strachs
December 31st 2008

Buon Anno! Happy New Year! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

The Ski school did a sychronised ski with flares

Hi everyone Just a little message to wish everyone a Happy New Year, sending best wishes for 2009 The village we are living in have a big party on the 30th here so we had fireworks, a torchlight descent, hot wine and panetonne (Xmas cake) in the snow followed by a very late night at the pub with some of our guests. One of them was the son of my old Geography teacher Mr Smith, small world! After getting up at 7am for morning hotels vists, we are both a bit sleepy so not sure our hogmany will be a major [View Full Entry]

There were about a 100 instructors in the Torchlight descent

By The Strachs
December 25th 2008

Buon Natale! Merry Xmas! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

Graham on escort duties with guests

MERRY XMAS Hello everyone This comes from a very snowy Pila in Italy. Sending you all festive wishes and hopes for a fabulous 2009. Our first week with guests has gone better than expected and we are both really enjoying it...phew!!!!!!...it doesn't really feel like work although it has been mega mega busy. We have not yet had a full transfer day with loads of flight delays and blocked roads so our view might be somewhat optimistic at the moment. We just happen to have today off so it has been lovely just to have a long lie, open some of [View Full Entry]

With our rep pals from La Thuile and Courmeyeur, they come to Pila every week so great to catch up

By saintjohnnymexico
December 23rd 2008

Golden Globes or Broadway Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

Me, Tara and Suri

So tara and i have been in a bit of a fight lately. See tara faces a tough decision. Her final performance of her Broadway show, ALL MY SONS, is on the same night at the Golden Globes, where i am nominated for my supporting role in Tropics of Thunder. Personally i've seen the play and Tara does a lousy job and the play sucks, but my movie rules almost as much as Scientology. I am ike the king of the Globes, their most desired participant for TV ratings, bigger even than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I know my new [View Full Entry]

By worldzoo
February 25th 2007

Courmayeur ski weekend Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

View from the hotel

The forecast was snow in the Italian Alps this weekend - and what better way to check out my first Italian ski experience in Courmayeur. Courmayeur - Piste - 6/10 - lots of red but extremely bumpy. visibility was poor in the morning making it even harder to enjoy. - Facilities - 7/10 - the people moving machinery was average but a long wait if you want to go all the way to the top. other than that, it was generally a breeze. - Crowd - 7/10 - not many people on the piste despite school holidays. - Overall experience - [View Full Entry]

By Anat
July 15th 2006

It's not so pleasant to see a cable-car closed :-) Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

Looking at the Mont Blanc...

And the Israelis are welcome to sing it to the music of “gan sagoor” - of the “16th Sheep”... So what happened? After the hard day we had yesterday, Dana and I decided to take the cable-car up. It was anyway a rather short day, so we got up late, and by 9am Ron started to walk, while we went to the supermarket, very happy and relaxed. After filling our bags with goods for the next 2 days we continued to the cable-car station just to discover it was closed the entire summer season. Unbelievable that the girl in the info [View Full Entry]

By Anat
July 14th 2006

At least it ended with lots of wine! Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Pila

They are beautiful mountains up there!

Wow we had one hard day... It started with an easy walk down Italian Val Ferret. At some point we saw the entire mountain side above us ruined, all the trees cut. Ron said it looked like an avalanche and then he pointed to the right and there was the avalanche - a huge pile of ice, covered with mud, scary to think what happened to everything that stood in its way! At some point we started climbing but it wasn't too hard. It’s only 800m to our first col of the day (col means a mountain pass in French). It [View Full Entry]

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