Piancavallo

About 30 minutes from our home, just over the mountain above the Air Base is a decent ski resort, Piancavallo, which translates to valley of the horses. By the beginning of January, we hadn't been up to check it out yet so we did a little recconaissance mission to see what the snow and slopes were like. Our first trip up there, the snow was not great, it had been a while since a good storm passed through and sunny every day that week, so what snow was left was slick and disappearing fast. But we did manage to find a little ski park thingy for the kids, "Nevelandia." And I'll be damned if I was going to waste that entire hour it took me to round up the kids' snow clothes and get them dressed, so 20 euros later, we were chilling in kiddy snow land. They had this little lift the kids would ride their little sleds up and then the parents would follow behind down the almost flat slope, kicking them along, since it was too flat for them to get any speed or movement at all really. Brian was bored within 10 minutes, Emily took a little longer, but we quickly moved onto the snow bouncy houses and they showed some signs of excitement then. A few days later, a nice snowstorm rolled through the area so we were back and this time found a few good sledding hills the locals and other Americans were using. The snow was great, a few fresh feet of powder. The slopes were perfect for getting some speed, but not too fast for little ones. The only problem was everyone else had the same bright idea as us and the hill was covered with people. It seemed like some people were falling into a pattern of walking up the hill on one side and riding down the other side, in order to avoid collisions. But there were a few completely oblivious sledders out there ruining the system for all. So, after an hour of near misses and a few small collisions, we took our starving and tired bambini and headed down the mountain to home.