Day 26: Friday, February 11, 2011

Val d' Aosta from the city's center

This morning we woke up bright and early to head to the Alps.  We had to met at the Red Line Metro at 7am, so it was a very early start!  From there, we caught a charter bus that took us to Val d' Aosta, a ski town at the bottom the mountains.  The town is in a little corner tucked between the Italian Alps, the French Alps, and the Swiss Alps.  And it is absolutely beautiful; the scenery was stunning.  (But more on that later!)

Emily and I in Val d' Aosta

The bus ride was 3 and 1/2 hours long, and when we got there, the weather couldn't have been more beautiful!  It was sunny with bight, crisp blue skies, and fresh mountain air; it was fabulous!  We dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and decided to explore a bit!  It was an adorable town, with cobble stone streets everywhere, skinny little roads, and friendly locals.  But the best part was, you could gaze up and see the towering mountains in the sky, no matter which way you looked.  The Alps were so incredibly high, it was hard to believe we were going to be skiing down them the next day!  When we made it to the peak of the little town, there was a big, open circular area that you could gaze out from.  The view was absolutely surreal.  We were 100% surrounded by snow peaked mountains!  We all walked around a bit, then we headed to the ski rental place to get sized up!  Jonathan said the rental place is chaotic on Saturday mornings, so wanted to do everything today today, so we could just hit the slopes first thing in the morning on Saturday!

In the center of Val d' Aosta

Afterward, we all got lunch.  And when we do things that are program-inclusive, we eat very, very well.  They paid for all of our meals while we were there, so we had fabulous food the entire time!  We went to this adorable little restaurant near the peak of the town, and ate until we couldn't put one more morsel of food in our mouths.  We ordered appetizers, and wine, and first courses, and second courses, and dessert, and it was almost an overwhelming amount of food!  For starters, the servers brought out two huge platters of meats, cheeses, breads, and crackers...and naturally, we all just went to town.  Then they brought out three different kinds of pasta dishes; and they were the biggest bowls of pasta I have ever seen.  We didn't even make a dent on the portions they gave us.  Then we all ordered some more wine and cappuccino's, then tiramisu for dessert :)  I have become obsessed with tiramisu...which is not a good thing!

After lunch, we went tubing!  However, there was a slight mix-up with the research when it came to this aspect of the trip, because the park we went to was literally for little, little kids.  There were moon bounces and obstacle courses made for children!  And we could barley fit in the tubes/sleds!  But, we decided to go with the flow!  And it was absolutely hilarious watching all of us epically crash the sleds into fences because we are way too big for them.  I literally took down a three poles of fence as I crashed into it...opps! :)

Monte Bianco.  The highest point in Europe. Look how unbelievably clear the
skies are.  It actually looks fake.

Like I said, we literally couldn't see anything at first!

Difficult to see - but there were thermal baths everywhere!

That night, we had a very interesting experience.  Jonathon took us all to Le Terme di Pre St Didier, which was like a resort of thermal baths.  The place was absolutely humongous...and it was like a maze.  We all wore our bathing suits, and when we checked in, they gave us robes and flip flops.  After we got changed, we followed the crowd towards the thermal baths.  At first it was so steamy we couldn't see anything...we just had to walk into the water and feel our way through.  Suddenly, we were outside in a huge hot tub that was surrounded by the Alps on all sides.  There were dozens of hot tubs all interconnected throughout the resorts land.  There were igloos on the ground next to us, snow peaked mountains towering in the skies above us, and us in bathing suits sitting in thermal baths!  It was such a cool evening.

After we were all pruned up from the baths, we went inside to get dinner!  And it was bizarre, everyone was still in their robes!  And there was tranquil music playing, so it was very relaxing!  And even though, like most Apertivo's, the food was not very good and the spread was so random, it was still a really neat experience.  There is just nothing like that in the United States, so it was so different than anything any of us have ever done!  

Some of the girls waiting for dinner

Getting some wine and champagne

Everyone eating dinner in their robes!

After the thermal baths, we all walked around town again for a little bit!  There were still Christmas lights hung and evergreen framing doorways, it was so strange!  I was like "IT'S FEBRUARY!"  But I guess in a small little mountain town where it's always snowy and cold, you can get away with keeping Christmas decorations up year round!  We all went back to our hotel and called it an early night.  We couldn't wait to wake up and ski! :)