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Published: June 14th 2017
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Geo: 46.1445, 8.72654
The kids have been very keen to see and play in snow, and as there are a couple of days of rain forecast, and then a couple of very hot (25 degree) days, we were advised to go to the snow sooner rather than later. We were very kindly lent gloves for the kids by Eurosia and Martina (Steven ran into Martina as she put Daniel on the bus from Porto Ronco to Ronco for school) and headed off to San Bernardino, about 1 hour away. It was fabulous! The village of San Bernardino was almost deserted – lots of the snow has melted and the ski runs have closed, but there is still snow on the roofs in the village and on the cars, and about a metre of snow on the sides of the roads – the San Bernardino pass is still closed for snow. We even saw the water at the dam frozen (or almost frozen) over.
The lady in the tourism office told Steven that the snow wasn't't very good, but when Steven explained that we wanted to play in the snow because the kids had never done this, she directed us to an area at
the bottom of one of the ski lifts, where the kids could toboggan safely. They had a great time – Matthew was light enough that he flew down the hill, and Tom was fearless, until the snow got in his shoes and he got a fright with the pain of the cold! Georgia had a great time too – it was just a perfect day for us to be there, as the sky was blue and the day was warm (18 degrees) so that at one stage, Steven was in his T-shirt because he got hot running after the kids on the sleds. If it had been colder, we would have needed to borrow ski pants and boots and all the other paraphernalia – this way, we were in jeans and waterproof jackets, and I brought a full change of clothes for when we finished. The photos of the day show how much fun we had! Then a coffee, milkshake and a play on the playground equipment at the café terrace, before we went to check exactly HOW closed the San Bernardino pass really was! We drove only a few hundred metres along the road, before it had a thin
layer of snow, and lots of water (melting snow and ice) on the road – we decided that being able to touch the snow drifts from the car was excitement enough, and Steven did a 20 point turn on the narrow road to take us back to the village and then the road home.
Off to Mesocco, where we had seen a castle ruin as we had driven past it when we drove to San Bernardino – we were very lucky to get in as I think the castle is actually closed for renovations, but the workman waved us in so we had the place ourselves other than the workmen. It was a beautiful drive, then, down the valley to Bellinzona and home to Ronco.
At Ronco, we stopped at the village to find Nonno and Nonna – they had the keys to Il Monte – and the kids had a wonderful time playing with the local kids (including Martina's son Daniel). Tom played soccer (and Matthew joined in as well) and all had a fabulous time. Then, when we met Nonno and Nonna, we went with them to the orta (vegetable garden) of Zio Marcello, to admire the cherry blossoms, and
the amazing view from this pretty garden hanging from the cliff.
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