Advertisement
Our last day in Reading and we woke to a beautiful white blanket of snow, like five year olds we had a snow fight as we made our way to the train station. After an incredibly hectic last day, we packed all our possessions up into a taxi and made our way to Clapham. We finally made it to Justin and Shea's dropped off our bags and headed straight back out to the 'Them Crooked Vultures' concert at the Apollo theatre in Fulham. The new super rock band did not disappoint and we all left mesmerised by Dave Grohl on drums. After a fantastic show we returned for a couple hours sleep.
(20/12/2009) Day 1
After a restless couple hours we climbed into our taxi bound for Gatwick at 4am for our flight to Italy for the start of our skiing trip to the Dolomites. We checked in and grabbed an English breaky. We boarded our plane but because of recent snow we remained there for a good two hours without moving an inch...all exhausted we took the opportunity for a nap. We eventually we made it to Italy but not to Verona as planned but Turin, due to poor
weather conditions. We then waited another two hours for our luggage to be off loaded (they're is only so many thing you can do to stay entertained in a luggage room!). Next, we boarded the first of two coaches for a three hour journey to Verona. At Verona we had a brief break and then another three hour coach trip finally arriving in Val de fassa and to our Violetta Chalet just after 11pm.
After the incredibly long day we were pleasantly surprised by a fantastic three course dinner, wine and a warm bed.
Day 2
After a fantastic sleep perhaps not quite long enough but we didn't want to waste another minute. We enjoyed a delicious hot breaky and headed into town to sort out ski's and boots. Kitted out, we set off up the slope for what would be our best weather for the week. Blue skies and brilliant sunshine we battled to remember just how to ski. Carly struggled more then the boys with some impressive crashes! Jez got cleaned up by a loser in a green jacket resulting in some serious whiplash, nasty bruises and fear of what was soon named 'green jacket run'. We
stopped for pasta for lunch and did a few more runs before calling it a day. That evening we were treated to another delicious three course dinner and wine.
Day 3
We hit the slopes again, Carly taking a bit longer to get her ski legs this morning leaving the boys to
battle out the bigger slopes whilst Carly practiced on the easy runs, meeting up at the pub for a beer on the way home. We met back at the Bill and Sarah back at the Chalet for some predinner drinks followed by some more amazing food from our chef Bruno from Slovenia.
Day 4 We set out ofter a hot breaky. Despite the cloudier start Carly joined Jez, Juz and Shea over to the 'snow park' for a fun day of jumps, races and of course more stacks!!
That evening we headed out for dinner (our Chefs night off) and to the the Crystal Pub Quiz, we battled with the typically English questions finishing a respectable midrace.
Day 4
After a few too many wines the night before we took the morning off, heading into town for coffee and catch up one the net. We
shared a couple pizza's for lunch and headed up, but Jez's bruised shins and terrible visibility saw us complete just two runs and call it a day. We headed back and joined Bill in some snowman making and snow fighting. Carly taking the snowman making to a whole new level creating a family of snowmen having to be dragged in as night fell.
Day 5
We rose early to another huge breaky in preparation to tackle the Sella Ronda a skiing loop of 26km over 46km including lifts. Our skiing had definitely improved over the week with no major stacks or collisons we made it back injury free. After an awesome day we celebrated on the way home with a couple pints and a jagerbomb! The festivities continued with games including a special pass-the-parcel (thanks to Justin's girlfriend Hazel) at home which saw Justin struggle to get the lollie from his forhead into his mouth, Bill and Sarah arm wrestle, Carly sporting a moustache for the rest of the evening and Jez a sparkly G-string (fortunately on the outside of his jeans!).
Day 6 Christmas Day
Like a little school girl Carly bounded out of bed at
6:30am to see the the kids with the santa presents but arrived five minutes late to a quiet room of wrapping paper and presents and quickly decided that a few hours sleep would be invaluable, so retreated again quickly.
We woke the second time to a delicious Champange breaky with smoked salmon. We then exhanged our kris kringle gifts. Shea, Juz, Jez and Carly hit the slopes for one last time. Unfortunately the visibility was at it worst. But it was Christmas day and it was snowing!! With heavy heads we battled with our goggles which persisted in fogging up. We were barely able to see more then a couple metres so decided to head over to the snow park to see what it was like there. Marginally better we cruised about until the fog rolled in with evengence. Jez took a spectacular tumble, leaving a path of destruction googles, beanie, ski's.... so we called it a day. Back at the chalet prepared for Christmas dinner. We were treated to a fantastic spread an Italian starter of procuitto and melon, followed by a massive roast turkey and vege and a giant slice of Christmas pudding.
Followed by more wine and
a massive spread of cheese, games including chilli chocolate routlette. Exhausted following a brilliant week of skiing we called it a night pending our 5.45am departure the following morning.
Day 7
Morning came way too fast! We tucked into a quick breaky, farewelled our fantastic chalet hosts shocked at how fast the week had passed and shattered at the blue sky after the previous days of fog (but happy there was no chance of flight delays!). We boarded the coach and passed through the stunning scenery arriving at Verona airport a couple hours later. Hassle free we arrived at Gatwick a couple hours later to train line closures, it then took us nearly four hours to get back to Clapham. We were all too tired to care. Back at Justin and Shea's we set to washing and drying our clothes, takeaway Indian and an early night!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 21; dbt: 0.0572s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb