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| Albergo Alpena |
Their hotel where they were staying with a group of friends from Auatralia was outside my budget and so I booked into the more economical Albergo Alpena which was really nice.
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| Conrasto Disco |
Obviously they were catering for people who have been skiing all day with this much food in one meal.
After dinner we all went dancing at the Conrasto Disco in the village, but the five of us were the only people there as it was still early, so we left by 1 am.
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| The ski school - for adults too |
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| A statue in the village dedicated to the Italian Alpine soldiers |
The lesson was held on a very steep and narrow, icy slope so it was very hard on the knees and my left knee seemed very weak. It was not too cold though and I actually got quite hot skiing.
In the afternoon I went skiing solo to put some of the lessons into practice. After the narrow, icy training slope it was sheer heaven to ski on wide, soft trails, and I found it much easier.
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| View of the village and ski lifts |
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| The petrol station |
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| A group heading off to the ski lifts |
I had another pleasant meal at the pensione that night. Len and Rog, especially Pat and Pamela are still complaining about the poor food, service and high prices at their hotel. I crashed pretty early after a delicious meal - exhausted.
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| Beautiful when the sky cleared |
I had another a private lesson with another instructor, Paola, who's style was different to that of Daniela the day before. However after few monumental tumbles I learned a bit more.
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| Some of Len's group of friends. Michaela in dark red jacket at rear left |
I spent another hour skiing by myself afterwards and felt much more confident. I joined Len's friends in a restaurant halfway up the slopes for lunch - extremely civilised. I found that Len's friends, Harry, Pat, Pamela, Bruno, etc. had high expectations, probably from having been to the Italian Alps a few times, and their tolerance and patience were pretty low.
There were people who just rode up in the chairlift, had lunch and caught the chairlift back down.
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| Michaela on the chairlift |
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| Heading up the mountain |
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| Near the top of the ski run |
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| Len in the bar of the pensione |
We returned to Alpina and I had another nice meal, this time joined by some of Len's friends keen to experience the excellent food at the pensione. After dinner, I crashed again.
It feels good to be staying in one place and not running around, and also having someone to speak English with.
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| Snowy morning in the village |
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| Michaela and I on the chairlift |
It snowed quite heavily in the morning but cleared nicely in the afternoon so Michaela and I went up the Carlo Magno ski lift and skied the pomma run at the top twice and then the run down to the hotel twice as well.
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| Michaela |
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| Ric in Driza-Bone ski outfit |
My left knee became very painful but it was worth suffering so I could get in some great skiing. It was a bit misty in parts but there was no wind and not too cold.
The powder snow was half a metre deep on the edges where it had not been flattened. On the whole, it was a very pleasant day.
We decided to leave the next day, Saturday morning instead of Sunday as we were pretty tired, some bad weather was forecast and we were also keen to travel south to Tuscany.
