Monastery at Chiaravalle

Susannah and I took Dad and Maria to the monastery at Chiaravalle, which is south of Milano. It had some amazing (and disturbing) frescoes on the walls of the church. We also got to go into the cloister, which is where the monks live. It was neat to see their lunch room, which looked like it was right out of "Harry Potter" except that there was wine on every table! 

 The view from in the cloister

 Awesome columns supporting the covered walkway around the cloister

 The place where all the monks sit during mass

 Ceiling inside the church

 Gruesome scene in the chapel next to the main church

Dad and Maria in front of the church. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but like many Italian churches, there are some beautiful surprises inside.

Playing with Oma

Susannah loved all the attention she got from Oma and Grandpa...but mostly Oma!

Day 4 in the Dolomites

Morning view from our apartment in Ortisei

We decided to take another cable car up the mountain behind Ortisei, to a place called Seceda. This cable car was a two-parter...we took the first leg, then got out and got into another cable car up the very top. It was a little hair-raising for those of us that are afraid of heights. See that whitish area way down there? That is Ortisei..which is where we started.

Luckily, the cable car made it to the top, and we walked around a bit. It was significantly colder up there!

View from the top...those are the Austrian Alps in the distance.

While we were at the top, a group of German (?) guys (and a lady) came up and started preparing to parasail.  We waited, and waited, and waited, and finally they were ready to go!  They went all the way down to Ortisei (and later that day, we saw them going up the funivia to do it again!)

What a feeling this must be!

This picture should be at the end, but oh, well. Dad and Maria hiked back down all the way to Ortisei from the midway point.  We took the cable cars down because we had the kids.  Then, we met up again in Val d'Anna because we wanted to show it to Oma and Grandpa.  On the path on the way out of Val d'Anna, is this little water feature. We were instructed to take off our shoes and socks, and walk around in the frigid snow melt water.  Then, your circulation is supposed to improve. As dad and Maria had sore feet from all their hiking, they gave it a whirl.

Norah at the top of the world (well, it felt like it anyway...).

Unique churches

The churches in the Dolomites have these unique bell towers, often red in color. Very different from the cathedrals in much of the rest of Italy.

Val d'Anna

Well, it wasn't raining when we got back down to Ortisei, and Dad and Maria were still off somewhere hiking down the moutain, so we decided to take the trail up to Val d'Anna, which we heard from several sources is great for kids.  Well, it was! The kids had a blast, the walk was beautiful, we had some delicious streudel (I don't think we're in Italy anymore...), and it was a great afternoon!

Luke and the lizard

Suzy Cute

James at the park...with no beard!

Suzy checking out Daddy's stubble

Norah literally rode this zip line for about an hour. There were no other kids there but us, so she had it all to herself!  That is, until Luke wanted to try!

He looks terrified, but he actually came back for more!

Here's the path on the way out of the valley. It was really a beautiful place, and perfect for kids.

Day 3 in the Dolomites

The day started with a walk into town and a parade with lots of religious icons and also people in tradional dress. Pretty neat! (Photo: Dad and Maria) James assured us that though it was starting to rain, we should pay some big money anyway, and take the funivia (cable car) up to the Alpe di Siusi, which is a beautiful, wide valley up and over the mountains near Ortisei. We went along, and boy, are we glad we did!  When we got up there, the mist and rain cleared and we had some sunshine, even!

I need to figure out how to publish a group of photos in the order I want them in...sorry for the strange chronology on this post!  Once we got to the top with the Funivia, we then hiked down a steep and windy 'road' and thought to ourselves: this will NOT be fun to push the stroller back UP later...then, when we got down into the valley, we saw a ski-lift, so after exploring for a while, we and the kids and the stroller took it back up.  Dad and Maria decided to hike back down to Ortisei. (Photo: Dad and Maria)

Chiara and Susannah on the ski-lift (Photo: Dad and Maria)

Back to the first thing we saw this day, some girls in traditional dress in the parade. (Photo:  Dad and Maria)

Luca is pointing to his favorite mountain.

Chiara and Dad, Alpe di Siusi

Chiara and the kids, Alpe di Siusi

The family band, Alpe di Siusi

Maria and kids checking out some donkeys, if memory serves me...

Now we are on the funivia back DOWN to Ortisei. We had a great time up in the Alpe di Siusi!

Day 2 in the Dolomites

A gentleman baking traditional bread at the SpeckFest

Horses in the mist (it was a very misty day!)  At first the kids were excited to be "in a cloud," but when we were in the clouds, the temperature was decidedly LOWER, so they got over the novelty quite quickly.

A break in the mist. The view from the hilltop where the Ladin Culture Museum is. Beautiful countryside!

The Ladin Culture Museum is located in this old converted castle. I would give this museum an 8 for effort, but a 3 for execution. Nothing for kids to do, and very ODD exhibits.  For example, in the room that described the conflict between the church and the Ladin People, there was a recorded 15 minute conversation between a priest, a nun, and a townsperson. BO-RING! The kids just about went bonkers! We did learn that the Ladin have their own language (Ladin), and that they are famed woodworders and silversmiths. (Photo: Dad and Maria)

Family Band in Traditional Dress (+Susannah in stroller)...SpeckFest (Photo: Dad and Maria)

Walking to Santa Cristina

On our first day, we walked on a path 5 km to Santa Cristina, the next town up the valley from Ortisei.  The path was converted from a railroad that ran between the towns until the late 1940's, I think. The railroad was built in large part by hand by Russian prisoners of war, during the winter. They built the whole thing in something like 5 months!

Experimenting with Aperture

James and I got each other a Christmas, and anniversary, and birthday gift for the next year: a new digital SLR camera! (This shot is me practicing with aperture...)  We took Dad and Maria to Ortisei, which is in Trento Alto Adige province of Italy, which is an autonomous province near Austria. The landscape is gorgeous, stunning...we were in the Dolomite Mountains.  We spent 4 days here and had a wonderful time walking, hiking, riding funivia's, playing in beautful parks, eating semi-Austrian food, attending SpeckFest (for you, Nicholas!), and much more. The weather could have been nicer, but we really did a lot in spite of it!

Beautiful Balcony

I just loved the flowers hanging from this balcony.  This is a common site in Italy...even though none of my flowers ever seem to go gangbusters like everyone else's...they must know something I don't know!

Maria

I called Maria's name as she was taking photos of the view, and I got her!