Skiing in Courchevel, France and Milan in the snow

For the New Year I was invited by Israel to join him and two friends and go to the French Alps for a ski vacation. I've never done this before. Was always scared I would break something and was also afraid of being terribly cold. Israel convinced me this is something worth doing and I figured, why not? I like mountains, I like sports, if I manage to deal with the cold, this can be fun. Deep in my sixth year in Europe I finally did it....


We did some preliminary buying of ski pants and socks and set out on New Year's Day for Geneva by train. In Geneva we picked up the other two friends and continued by car to Annecy where we spent the night at the Ibis hotel (clean and friendly hotel, excellent buffet breakfast). Annecy is a very pretty town which in the past was the capital of the region (an area held by the house of Savoy, which were the rulers of Italy until the end of the 2nd World War). A river runs through it, which is always a nice thing in towns and cities and it opens onto the Lake of Annecy. Beautiful.


From Annecy we continued to Moutiers and stayed also there at an Ibis hotel (not as nice as the one in Annecy, but still quite acceptable, with a beautiful view of the mountains in the breakfast room). We went to try the waters at Le Grand SPA des Alpes at Brides les Bains, an expensive spa catering to rich Russians, Italians and French. It has a nice outdoor jacuzzi which we tried -it was lovely. It was a clear evening and we could see the moon and Venus. Israel said though that because of dipping in it he and another in our group got bad colds. I don't know if it's good to have your head frozen and the rest of you immersed in hot water... The place also has a hamam and various steam baths. Very relaxing and enjoyable. For dinner we went to the excellent Le Coq Rouge restaurant. A typical family owned place serving local delicacies and great cheeses for dessert (although we also had "regular" desserts...).

and then we went to La Tania, which is a small village not far from Courchevel for the skiing (the picture opening the post and the one here on the left are from there). We had a nice apartment right near the beginners ring... in the center of the village. This year is a very good year for skiers - lots of snow (which goes however with VERY cold weather). and, you're asking yourself, did she ski??? She did....
I was taken to the ski equipment store and the guy there sized me up and then gave me my boots, skis and poles for the next three days (why only three days? Because I had to go back to Milan...). I then marched to the next place - the ski school to sign up to the débutant (beginner) classes.

My, was I a beginner.... I had one private lesson and two lessons with a group of about 6. The key phrases we heard these days were - ski parallel, snow plow.... ski parallel snow plow... Imagine this being said with a deep French accent and a weary voice by the ski trainers who were wondering to themselves what possessed us poor souls who decided at this late point in our life that we need to learn to ski.... I kept falling ALL of the time (which everyone says is natural) and was terribly envious of the little children around me who took to the business like fish to water. Because they are small their center of gravity is much lower and so they don't fall so much, and, they're not afraid, which makes everything so much easier for them, compared with us clumsy adults, who have developed instincts which work exactly opposite to what is needed to keep upright on the skis....

How does skiing work? for those unfamiliar with the sport (like me) - first, you've got to figure out how to put on those heavy, uncomfortable boots and then put them and yourself on the skis.... (notice the concentration in the left picture, and the weird stance in the right picture but the triumphant grin....)


Then, you climb up the little hill (I'm actually skipping a bit, the next stage after getting on the skis is managing to somehow wobble from place to place without falling over and learning the basics, but in the name of brevity I'm sparing you the boring parts...) -











Some of us (like me...) manage to fall off this little lift (I was trying to pull up the zipper of the coat, lost my grip and promptly fell off) and then, after a few clumsy attempts to get hold of another pole, have to climb up the hill walking in the heavy boots (although, as Israel pointed out, it probably would have made more sense at this point to go back down and start again....) -


Then, once you've reached the top of the little hill, you look up to make sure no kamikaze (more experienced) skiers are facing your way and you cautiously start coming down the hill (by the way, what I'm trying to do in these pictures is the famous "snow plow") -


As you're going down you have to relax, pick your head up and look where you're going, put pressure on your left leg when you want to go right and on your right leg when you want to go left, and try not to go too fast (as if you actually have control over this) so you can stop at the bottom of the little hill.... All against your better instincts, which means that about 90% of the time you end up falling in the snow.... and then you start again.

During this exercise you discover muscles you didn't know you have. Surprisingly, I wasn't cold, even though it was about -4 most of the time during the day. Probably the effort and the warm clothes made it possible for me to bear the cold.

I don't have a picture of me falling, but trust me, I fell, many times, although Israel claimed (rather gallantly, I thought) that I was actually not too bad, for a beginner. A guy in my beginners group pointed out that it's hard being used to doing things well and suddenly be in a situation where you're so clumsy... Still, I enjoyed myself tremendously. Definitely something I'd like to try again.

Below, you can see pictures of Israel and me, and on the right, Philipa, Israel and Ribak near our apartment. They, of course, went zooming down all the mountains in the vicinity, which I understand are great. I wonder what they're like in the summer?!




In the evening you rest your weary muscles -










and prepare your well deserved dinner. Israel devised a great way to cut onions....











and then you start on your way back to Milan (Courchevel is actually not that far from Italy, quite close to the border between the countries, but it took me 12 (!) hours to get back. In the pictures below, waiting for a bus that never came, I was still not too frozen.

Later on, waiting for 40 min. for another bus i got rather cold as the Brits would say, couldn't really feel my toes.... on the way from Chambery to Geneva they suddenly announced that the train couldn't get into the station in Geneva and were getting us prepared for a long wait. Somehow, though, we arrived in time for me to catch the train to Milan.

Arriving back, I discovered that it had snowed quite heavily in the north of Italy and in Milan - which is rare (the Milan bit). The traffic in the city was moving very slowly and went on moving even slower the next day when more snow fell... I ended up walking to work the next day because no tram came and there was no way I could drive the car to work - the roads were covered with snow and like in Jerusalem - they were not really prepared for this here.

I had my camera with me on this walk and here are some pictures I took during my small hike to work, the dog in the picture on the bottom right planted himself in the snow and wouldn't move, his owner said he doesn't like to go out generally but he seems to like the snow...:




Going home that same day was a bigger endeavour since the snow had turned into ice in some places and in other places there were huge puddles to negotiate. I was standing at some point on a small hill of snow at the curb trying to figure out how I'd jump over a puddle and not break my head landing on some ice on the other side when an old man looked at me and said - this is what we get for voting for Moratti (the city's mayor)....

I'll leave you with a picture of two trams in the snow in Milan.... Hope you liked my descriptions of winter in Europe. Hope you're warm wherever you are.

Lago Maggiore and Lago Como revisited (and Milan in Nov.)

When I lived in Hungary there were certain places there - especially Szentendre and the Danube bend - which I visited so many times I got to see those places in every possible season and condition - in the dead of winter, in spring, in the fall and in the summer, when the Danube was overflowing and when the water was low and even once from a balloon.... I enjoyed it each time anew.

Here in Italy, it seems that the two lakes - Maggiore and Como are destined to be my favorite spots for taking my guests. As I wrote in the past, I've already visited the lakes in the rain, in the early spring, in the middle of the summer - dying of the heat, in autumn and just recently with a new friend - during two freezing days, but beautiful nonetheless, at the beginning of winter. These two days were exceptionally beautiful, both because of the friend I was with and also because the days were clear, which is rare here, what with pollution and almost permanent haziness and/or fog. In this post I'll let you mostly enjoy some of the excellent pictures taken by my friend.

Strong winds blew the day we went to Stresa (on the shores of Lago Maggiore) which cleared the air (and froze us, too...). It was so windy we couldn't go very far and settled for a great lunch in the restaurant at the bottom of the cableway at Piazzale Lido. Here are some pictures in which you can practically "see" the wind (notice the waves on the lake, and me in a typical frozen look):





It snowed during the night on the mountains but the weather cleared in the morning. It was a glorious drive up to Como - we could see the snow capped mountains clearly as we drove north. We took the funicular up to San Maurizio and climbed up to the lighthouse. We had lunch up there - again, great local food (it doesn't cease to amaze me how good the food is here - you can go into practically any trattoria or restaurant and be sure you'll eat well, even in the simple places).

Lago di Como was its usual beautiful self, as were the mountains in the distance:




and here are some special pictures taken from the windows of the lighthouse:



next some pictures of me en route between the lake and the lighthouse:


we also met two friendly dogs who were waiting for their owners to finish their lunch:

Back in Milan, here are some pictures of the Navigli (the canals) at sunset:

To end this post, here are some pictures of ducks (who are also known as katshkes in Yiddish, I discovered) and swans living happily on Lago Maggiore and Lago di Como:

and who is the friend you'd like to know? Here is a picture of us taken in Stresa:

Merry Xmas to all and to all a good night....

Ushpizin and activities in Milan, Lago Maggiore, Padua, Venice, Ravenna and Vicenza

For the holidays I had "ushpizin" (visitors) - Gil from Israel and Peleg and Yosi from Paris. If the weather is good (which it was, it hardly rained and was quite beautiful) Oct. is the best time to visit Italy. Not too hot and not so crowded. Finding a hotel in Venice was a breeze which it rarely is. I got a chance to eat well, see a lot of art and new places which I enjoyed a lot (on the left you can see a picture taken in Padua). It was fun having friends stay over (even if they did make fun of me over the stones for my nephews...; Gil decided the Italian lady on my GPS was a bit irritating - svoltare a sinistra, entrare nella rotonda, etc. and I need to be more independent and do without her. He made it his mission during the visit to help me pass the 3,000 km mark with my car (which we did...)).

With Gil we drove over to Stresa on the banks of Lago Maggiore. As you may recall, during my previous visit there it started to pour halfway through and I had to cut my visit short. This time we got to see the lake in all its autumn glory. We took the cable car up to Mottarone - well worth the 40 min. trip - it's so quiet and peaceful up there. We could easily have spent more time there but we came late and just made the last cable car back down to Stresa. With Yosi's encouragement one of my pictures from there of Isola Bella has become my computer wallpaper:

and here are two pictures of the view from Mottarone (according to the information they give out over there you can see five lakes from the top of the mountain, we had to take their word for it, since it was hazy, I think we only saw 2 lakes....). By the way, strangely enough, we ended up going up the mountain with an Israeli family who were terribly impressed that we could talk Italian with the Italian "driver" of the cable car:

Gil and I did some experimenting in the ice cream department. Two contenders for the title - best ice cream we tasted - were from a place called Chocolat which has two parlors in Milan (and at least one other outside of Milan in Parma) and GROM (which Gil tried in Venice and I had tried in the summer in Milan).

On our way home from Parma one day (we went to a big antique market that Paola and Enrico wanted to go to) we stopped at a trattoria on the way to have a local specialty - pastry? bread? kind of salty puff pastry called torta di fritta. Nice.

We had a divine gnocchi and macaroni dish in a place called La Briciola (the owners, oddly enough, own and run a restaurant by the same name in Santo Domingo...). It was so good we returned there a second time with Peleg and Yosi.

But probably the best dinner we had was at Paola and Enrico's - Paola promised Gil ravioli and gnocchi and served us three different types of these with some of her great tiramisu for dessert (did I gain weight you wonder, yes I did, but it was worth it and I'm working hard now to lose the extra bits... went to the pool twice since the ushpizin left).

Gil went off to Venice at a certain point and I spent a couple of days with Peleg and Yosi in Milan. We had made a booking to see Leonardo Da Vinci's Cenacolo (Last Supper) at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. I had seen the fresco before (six or seven years ago when I visited Paola and Enrico coming from Hungary), but this time I was going to see it after having seen other "Last Supper"s by other painters and after having been exposed to many other works made during the Renaissance. The fresco is beautiful in spite of being in bad shape. You get this feeling as if the fresco is a continuation of the refectory (where the monks used to eat) and you could step into the picture, to say nothing of the feeling of animation and life in the fresco. Truly amazing (on the left you can see Yosi and me leaving the refectory).

We went also with Paola to the Villa Nechi Campiglio which recently opened its gates to visitors (its run by the FAI foundation). The villa belonged to a rich Milanese couple (they owned a factory for sewing machines). Amazing to see these villas and their contents. People with so much money and a chance to do exactly what they please in their homes. Their bathrooms were particularly amazing to my mind.

We did quite a bit of shopping in Milan - especially, I was happy to chose new glasses with Peleg and Yosi (but no pictures yet of them - next post....). In the picture on the left you can see Peleg and me in the Public Gardens (Giardini Publici).

After Peleg and Yosi returned from Florence and Gil left back to Israel we took ourselves to fair Padua as it is called by Shakespeare in Taming of the Shrew. The town is just lovely. Peleg found us this nice boutique hotel - the Methis Hotel along the Canale Piovego. In the town we went to the Prato della Valle, the biggest piazza in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. We got there just in time for the monthly antique market. In the picture you can see Yosi and me in a mirror on sale there.

One of the highlights of our visit to Padua was going to the Cappella degli Scrovegni to see Giotto's frescoes in the chapel. I've always liked Giotto's frescos and these were particularly interesting because you could see that Leonardo, Michelangelo and others had probably seen these frescoes and were influenced by them in their paintings of the Last Supper (Leonardo) and the Day of Judgement (Michelangelo).

I liked Padua a lot. As we walked the town we came along the Piazza della Pace dedicated to (and I quote) Ytzhak Rabin (I think this is the weirdest spelling of this name that I've ever seen. I wonder where they got this spelling from, maybe they copied it off some of the signs in Israel...). We also visited the Basilica del Santo dedicated to the patron saint of Padua - Sant'Antonio. His remains are still in the church. Since it's believed that he could and still can help cure illnesses - there is a lot of activity in this church and many people make the pilgrimage to his tomb and leave their requests and offerings there.

As it was getting darker we came across a sign indicating that the Jewish ghetto of Padua was not far away. We stood at a certain corner trying to figure out which way to go when a nice gentleman came up to us and asked what we were looking for. I explained and he offered to show us. It turned out that he belongs to the Jewish community there and was on his way to a lesson at the synagogue. He explained that in the past there were three synagogues - the Italian, the Sepharadi and the Ashkenazi (all within 100 meters of each other). Today only the Italian Synagogue is active and the community is very small. It turned out that he represents an Israeli company from the Golan.

We then went on to have an aperitivo in a small place serving various anti pasti and some great wine. The couple running the place seemed like retired hippies.

For dinner we went to a trattoria near our hotel. The lady running the place was a bit scary and to a large extent told us what to eat rather than actually taking our order. We managed to get a smile out of her when we complimented her on the tiramisu served there which she said she makes herself. The cook, who was rather big (especially his hands), shuffled around serving the food.

I'll end the Padua part of this post with two of a number of pictures of me and a "living statue" taken by Yosi.

From Padua we took the scenic route along the river Brenta to Venice. We passed by some of the famous villas along the river. beautiful.

In Venice we stayed at the San Moise Hotel which Peleg knew but which had been renovated since he'd been there. The hotel is very elaborately decorated with huge Murano chandeliers, and furniture recreating the Venetian Republic period (to quote from the web site of the hotel)...

Here are two pictures I took of us in the room there so you can see what it was like:

The highlight of the visit to Venice for me was the visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. There's something so tranquil about the place, a lot of light. I like it a lot (this was my second visit), I like to see collections made up of people's own likes - which is usually varied yet personal and in a way more interesting than what you might see in a museum. Also, it was nice to go there since I'd seen a movie about the life of Jackson Pollock - who was discovered by P. Guggenheim. A few of his works are exhibited there. By the way, in her garden, beside her own grave all her dogs are buried. Below you can see pictures of Peleg and me "trying out" two sculptures in the garden there. The left one is by Anish Kapoor. The right one - I'm not sure (maybe Peleg remembers?!).

I also went to see an exhibit of wooden models based on Leonardo's inventions in the San Barnaba Church. Beautiful. It's intriguing to see the products of his imagination - the helicopter's propellor, the idea on which the gear box in a car is based on, ball bearings, the armored tanks and many other inventions. I liked this room of mirrors which allows you to see all sides of an object placed in the middle without turning the object (me, in this case):

It was in Venice that Yosi was quite disappointed that his Spaghetti, which was supposed to be alla Bolognese didn't really have that much ground meat on it... (I asked a friend later who told me that in Italy there is really no such thing as Spaghetti Bolognese, it's a foreign invention... this is backed up by the article I found on this issue on Wikipedia).

It started raining on the way to Ravenna which is about 220 km south of Venice. We drove south along the coast - hoping for a pretty ride. But, due to the rain and the trucks (so many which I was a bit afraid to overtake...) it was just a drive.

Ravenna is a bit out of the way, so if you're not going there to see the mosaics, then you don't just fall on it on the way from here to there. However, the mosaics, from the early Christian and Byzantine period are well worth the detour (some are world heritage sites). The craftsmanship is amazing. I was telling my Italian teacher that if I lived there I would probably try and take a course to learn how to make mosaics. I discovered that the great grandfather of a friend of mine did the restoration works in some of the churches there (on the left, a part of the mosaic in the Basilica Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and on the right the ceiling of the Basilica di San Vitale - click on it to enlarge the picture and see it better).

and with this we finished our three day tour and headed back to Milan. In Milan we went to get my new glasses and Peleg and Yosi helped me make the guest room more cheerful with some pictures (which I had but couldn't decide how to hang...).

In between all of this I also went to Vicenza (about half an hour from Venice) for a business trip and to receive a prize on behalf of the Israel Coin and Medal Corporation for this lovely medal based on the prophecy of Isaih "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb” (Isaiah 11:6) - (picture taken by Giovanna):


The organizers of the event also arranged for a tour of an exhibition of the works of the architect Andrea Palladio who was born in Padua and lived and worked in Vicenza - in honor of his 500th birthday (also some of the buildings planned by him are on the world heritage list). There I discovered that the White House was built in the Neo Classical style which was influenced by the works of Palladio.... Yup. Here is a picture of one of the buildings planned by him (Piazza dei Signori e Basilica Palladiana):

I will end this (rather long...) edition of my blog with a picture I took of some ducks in Padua? Why? I don't know - I like ducks and I liked Padua. I hope you enjoyed the read. Good night.