La dolce vita - in the snow!

This morning we were all feeling the pinch from yesterday’s effort. Anyway, having figured out how to navigate, we (again) made a plan to take it very easy and have a nice lunch. We breakfasted as usual and we now have coffee pods for the espresso machine after last night’s supermarket trip, so that was a bonus. After a fair bit of groaning, mostly from Cameron (she says this is because she obviously is still recovering from a long trip in ECONOMY), we got ourselves out the door. Down to the ‘Melbourne Cup’ gates, a short walk up the street, a slow grind up a flight of stairs and we were on the Costabella lift - comfy padded chairs of course!

Our plan today was to ski the Dantercepies area, which includes a very steep World Cup downhill run which looks fabulous, but we do not plan to ski today due to the condition of our legs! At the top of the lift we skied down to the Dantercepies gondola for a comfortable ride to the top. Conditions were looking fabulous - brilliant blue skies above, miles of nicely groomed piste below - this was what we needed yesterday! We could see people absolutely flying down the special downhill run, however otherwise everyone was just cruising the reds and blues, perfect!

Doing some gondola time…

Dantercepies!

After some “It’s for the blog!” cajoling from me for a photo stop at the top, met with reluctant groans from Sean (annoyance) and Cameron (embarrassment), we headed down towards the gondola station on a lovely long groomer, sunny at the top and a bit crunchy and crusty in the shade at the bottom. Back up the Gondola again, we noticed it was sunnier over the other side of the ridge, so we tipped down into the Cir A lifts for some more lovely groomers. After a couple of runs we decided it was time for morning tea, so we headed into the Dantercepies rifugio.

It’s for the blog!

Lining up at the counter, we decided to have coffee - got the macchiatos this time! - and then Cameron spied a chocolate cake as Sean spied apple strudel, so we had to sample both. We sent Cameron off to get a table - she somehow got the best view in the house, sharing with an Italian father, son and son’s girlfriend. Sean and I arrived at the table with the coffees and (very generous) cake and strudel slices, and we proceeded to dig in. O.M.G! The chocolate cake was actually choc-orange, a 3 layer cake, topped with a thin layer of sweet orange jam and a thin layer of hard chocolate - wow. The strudel was light, flaky pastry with perfect apple inside. Delicious! One thing I have found quite noticeable is the lack of the usual ski cafeteria ‘fast food’ smell when you walk into a rifugio. Rifugios smell like home cooking and espresso, so good - they also pretty much all have outdoor/indoors bars where you can order up your magnums of Champagne for EUR500 and let it rip (…maybe later this trip!). Also people were on the beers at morning tea time again, clearly this is normal.

Delicious

Best view in the house!

We got chatting with the Italians on our table - I am in awe of the number of languages these people can speak (Sean’s doctor said he spoke seven languages) - who could not believe we had come so far to ski. We chatted for a while and then they headed off to go back out, a couple walked up to us and said ‘we heard the Australian accents!’ - they were an Australian couple living in Portland, Oregon, who have been coming here for years. They gave us a few tips (get up early for the best skiing) and recommended the hut ‘Panorama’ directly below us for lunch. Excellent! We thought we would do a couple more runs and then eat, but then Cameron piped up with “I think I have a blister” revealing one bigger than a 5 cent piece on the inside of her ankle. Owwwww! ‘…and Ewwww gross! We realised she wouldn’t be able to ski much more with that level of pain, and none of us had any bandaids, so we decided we’d go straight down to have some lunch, and then ski home.

Back out again…

Panorama was another stunning wooden cabin with unbelieveable views and a smell that had my mouth watering even before we walked in the door. Kicking off with a prosecco for me, Aperol Spritz for Cameron and red wine for Sean, we got comfortable and enjoyed the view. Sean and Cameron ordered Wienerschnitzel with roast potatoes and I ordered the special of the day - faggotini with speck and tomato sauce. Our meals arrived and they were…huge! Especially since we’d just had morning tea! Note to self to share next time! We tucked in, watching the skiers fly down the hill, enjoying our wine and food and la dolce vita generally as the restaurant filled up around us. Unbelievably, we all finished our plates - there will not be dinner tonight! After a post-lunch espresso to ward off the food coma, we decided to head for home.

Panorama lives up to its name

You better believe I’m going to eat all of this LARGE Wienerschnitzel

Fagottini

Cameron somehow boarded through the blister pain as Sean and I enjoyed the groomers on the way home. The relief on Cameron’s face was palpable once her boots were off, and we have a nice big stash of bandaids and anaesthetic antibiotic cream in our trusty first aid kit (no suppositories this year!), so she was all patched up in short order. Since it was only about 3pm, our washing has been mounting up and getting laundry done in our hotel is really expensive, we decided to go to the laundromat. Having done some googling, we left Cameron at home to soothe her ailments and jumped in the car to head to the next town, Ortisei, about 15 minutes drive, where there is a laundromat. Ortisei looks like a pretty cool town - much bigger than Selva, with a river running through it with ice sculptures in the middle a various points along it.

Just over an hour later, having navigated the instructions to use the machines, we had two bags of clean and reasonably dry laundry, and I had caught up on this blog - mission accomplished! We can now park the car outside our apartment block as a level park has become available and our car won’t slide away, so we also decided to top up the fuel with anti-freeze diesel. The petrol station was unattended so we had the tricky task of working out the machines so we could fill up - we got there in the end, thank goodness. All fuelled up, we headed for home, noticing that the traffic had gotten very heavy - apparently today is accommodation changeover day so lots of people were coming and going - there must have been a lot of frustrated Fangios sitting here!

We arrived home triumphantly with our laundry, and still not very hungry. I did a bit of work, some blogging and generally chilling out. Sean poured our leftover wine from last night and set out some cheese, cold cuts and crackers. Cameron arrived in the kitchen, looked at the plate and exclaimed “Girl Dinner!”. I chuckled because I’m a cool Mum and up to speed with this stuff, but Sean looked at her very confused. I quietly sat back, sipped my red and watched the action unfold as Cameron delighted in explaining to her old Dad what ‘girl dinners’ meant and Sean tried hard to compute why ‘girl dinners’ are even a thing. Priceless. After a few bites, a lot of World or Warcraft discussion - I am outnumbered here so I can only nod and sip red - more eyedrops and a whole lot of cough suppressant for Sean (he has also been grappling with a horrible dry cough that seems to get worse at bed time) we decided to crash out, with plans for getting up early in the morning for another sunny day on the slopes.

Girl dinner…