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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
December 24th 2009

Merry Christmas Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Courmayeur

Xmas tree from the square in Courmayeur

Buon Natale from Italy Merry Xmas from Courmayeur in Italy, we are at the foot of Mont Blanc on the Italy France border. This is our first week with guests and it is going really well so far even though we got our first lie in this morning past 7.30 for 3 weeks! It’s a much bigger resort than last year so logistically it’s a challenge....we used to be able to walk to the meeting point for taking people skiing in 2 minutes, now we need to allow at least 25 minutes but the village is absolutely beautiful, much livelier than [View Full Entry]

Leaving Scotland on the Rosyth ferry, Forth Road bridge in the twillight

By Omentide
June 28th 2009

Through Cattolica and on to Ponte St Martin Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Aosta

Main Street

Nothing much happened on the ferry. We chatted to people. Hilary read the other two books she bought for the reader (Fury and Interworld). Eventually we got to Ancona, left straight away and rode 80 km straight into the sun, ending up back at the Ferrara hotel in Cattolica. They seemed pleased to see us. Ashley demanded new eyes but settled for beer goggles - we found a place opposite the Ritter hotel where they sold beer in litre glasses. This was followed by a pizza and a salad at the Pirate restaurant with half a litre of house white (very [View Full Entry]

By Penscott
June 4th 2009

Italy Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley

Visitors

Trieste to Italy So we are off to Aunty Alma’s place in Ivrea (near Aosta and kind of between Milan and Torino), we are going to spend 4 lovely days, chilling out and doing nothing. So we got on the train in Trieste 14:30 and started our journey, we did the following transfers: Trieste to Veneto Menstre to Milan to Ivrea and finally arrived at Alma’s about 20:30. We walked from the train station up the hill, to which Scott kept saying to me, “ it is all training”, grrr… I think walking up at hill in 28 degrees whilst carrying [View Full Entry]

By audi am
May 19th 2009

Destination Monaco, entering Italy Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Mont Blanc

083

After our breakfast, we head off into Italy and looking at Monte Bianco from the Aosta Valley. Pictures do not do the views justice!!! [View Full Entry]

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 Arwen a la monde
March 6th 2009

Alpine Snowboard Triumph Europe » Italy » Aosta Valley » Mont Blanc

Sun chairs

Beautiful town in the Italian Alps + good italian food + good friends + much improved snowboarding = a triumphant snow boarding weekend Courmayeur, a quaint and tiny Italian ski town at the foot of Mont Blanc, was the site of this year's ski trip. Last year when I went to Switzerland my snowboarding skills were fledgling at best. I had a patient and brilliant coach but still got frustrated quickly, fell constantly and wore myself out because I was fighting the board so much. [View Full Entry]

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

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