Blogs from Aosta Valley, Italy, Europe - page 4

After our breakfast, we head off into Italy and looking at Monte Bianco from the Aosta Valley. Pictures do not do the views justice!!!... read more

Once again I decided to hop in the car, this time with my friend Laurie, and go on yet a new adventure. As we were both craving real pizza, we decided to take a trip over to the Aoste Valley in Italy. We found ourselves at border control (the Italians are much more conscientious than the French about this) and the entrance to the Great Saint Bernard Tunnel, the most ancient pass through the Western Alps. There is evidence of its use as far back as the Bronze Age, and that it was the path of Napoleon's army into Italy in 1800. It had the feeling of the Lincoln Tunnel, but not quite, considering Napoleon walked around there! Upon arriving in Italy we drove through a number of quaint villages and truly felt like we were ... read more

The YaYa's have arrived! (My mother and her bestest bud since the ice age, Mother Marilyn Tucker). It was wonderful to have not one, but 2 grandmas to spoil us and the girls for 10 days. We got to celebrate Abigail's 6th birthday over French Flammenkuchen (fancy pizza) and homemade cake! We took the opportunity to find some more spectacular spots in the area. We traveled to Chateau de Chillon on Lake Geneva and Gruyeres, Switzerland(home of Gruyeres cheese, and a beautiful medieval city). This weekend we rented a car and roadtripped into Northern Italy to the Italian Alps and up to the French/Italian border to see Mont Blanc, the tallest Mt. in Europe. It was more adventure than we bargained for. Abigail and Bella, unaccustomed to traveling by car now, were very ill on all ... read more

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 center even explained to us how to get there, how she could not know it didn’t work... Well after the little shock and some minutes to recover, we started really late, after 10am, walking all ... read more

We were reaching the end of our week in the south east of France and we had decided that there were two more trips we wanted to make before we left for northern France and home. One was to Annecy to spend a day wandering aimlessly around the town and the other to Northern Italy to the Aosta valley and Fenis Castle. A picture perfect castle. The journey there was pretty impressive in the mountains but this part of Northern Italy is rather an urban and industrial sprawl. Not the prettiest part of the country it has to be said. The castle though is something else. Pure medieval magic with watchtowers, inner staircases a keep and battlements. A quiet place on the day we went which meant we had time to meader and wander taking in ... read more