You Can't Win 'em All

Last week we returned to our regular routine after our two week excursion to Switzerland. Part of that regularity is our weekly field trip to a local Italian destination. The sort of place you wouldn't normally get to on a trip to Italy. Those little out of the way, charming towns that in a 10-day jaunt to the entirety of Italy you would probably pass by, not for want of seeing the sights, but for fear of missing something in a major destination.

One such place I've been thinking needed a visit was Montecatini Terme. It's stop on the train between Lucca and Florence so I frequently hear the name. I've also noticed out the window as we've trained by that it looks delightful and seemed to be in two parts: a lower and an upper.

After some research, it turned out the upper part is Montecatini Alto (literally Upper Montecatini), the original town. It is reached by a funicular railway and boasts one of the prime views of Tuscany. Montecatini Terme (literally Montecatini Hot Springs) is the more modern town that is home to a collection of baths and spas. A resort get away for Italians. What better place to visit when it's only a 20 minute train ride away, right? Get to see some big bath houses and springs, ride a funicular, get a great view of the valley, beautiful!

Alas, the day started off as these days seem to. I managed to misread the train schedule and got us to the train station just in time for our train to arrive...at our destination. I had switched the arrival and departure times. Oops. To make things even better, the train runs every 30 minutes...except between the train we missed and the next one when there is an inexplicable 2 hour break in service. Strike 1. So be it, an afternoon in Montecatini instead of a morning then!

We arrived just in time for lunch and found a cafe not far from the station that was actually one of the brighter spots in the day. Unlike many towns here, this downtown is quite modern and, by my now spoiled-by-living-here sensibilities, rather plain. It doesn't feel old like many other small Italian towns nor grand or unusual enough to be particularly interesting. I imagine Montecatini Alto would be more traditional and what we were hoping for. Below is one of the more interesting things we saw: a tree that had eaten a taxi sign.

Our first stop was to be a large public bath/spa area in the middle of town. I had seen some pictures online of cool old looking fountains and columns and water flowing with a general "that would be cool to check out" look to it. Upon finding it however, we found it was fenced up and closed for the season. Seems strange to me that a nice warm spa would be closed for the cool months, but I digress. So strike 2. The pictures show all we could see. Looks cool, but that's as close as we could get and nothing was going on.

The park in which the spa is located however offered a bit of win though. It's a quite expansive park with a lot of fields and nice paths to meander. Sadly no playground for the kids, but a very cool forested area that we spent a good half hour exploring and playing Predator & Prey (also called Eagle Eye) and other games you normally only get to play at camp. Foul tip, still Strike 2.

Reenergized by the park, we made our way toward the funicular to enjoy that ride and to check out the view from above. This had been one of the major selling points for the excitement of the day. I mean, who doesn't love a funicular ride!? (I had been selling it the line "Dad puts the "fun" in funicular!) With little difficulty we made our way half way across town on foot, with only a bit of complaining, to the station...only to discover that it and the railway itself are closed for renovation until March. Strike 3.

Figuring the day would be a complete loss, we came across Termeland (no joke) on our walk back to the station. Termeland, as you might imagine, is a (very feeble) attempt at conjuring a Disneyland like place in the middle of this small town. It consisted of a large playground, a jumpy house, a small fun house, and a ball pit along with a very small bumper car track and a few small games. Imagine a glorified elementary school PTA carnival and you're on the right track. However, after a day full of "almost fun" and "should've been cool", it was a welcome escape for the girls so we paid the 5 Euro fee and they ran around for a bit before our walk back to the train (and mandatory stop for gelato). Oh, and by the by, for those who, like me before I moved here, don't know, that character Arya is next to is not called Mickey Mouse here. He's known as Topolino. And for those who are curious yes, Minnie is Topolina. And because I know you'll ask, Donald is Paperino, Daisy is Paperina, Goofy is Pippo, and Pluto is...well...Pluto.

I believe this is the first one of these trips that has really fallen quite so flat. I'm not sure if my research wasn't strong enough before going or if we just had bad luck. The good news is, even in the failure of the original objectives, we still found a way to have a good time. Guess I call that a win after all.

Northern Italy and Switzerland: Lucerne and Iglu Dorf

(Note from Dad: I realized I uploaded the videos in Ashley's post about Zermatt in the wrong format so they probably didn't show very well. I've updated them so go check them out! Oh, and it seems the videos don't like to play on mobile devices so if you'd like to watch them, you'll need to be on a computer)

We left Zermatt and we went to Lucerne on the Glacier Express. That is a train where you look out the window because Mommy and Dada say there's a pretty view. It took five hours and we got to have a three course meal.

When we got there we walked over a bridge and down a couple streets to our apartment. The next day we went to the Transportation Museum. It sounds boring, but it's not. On our walk there we played at a park and we saw the harbor and a stone carving of a lion with an ouchy in his back.

When we arrived there, I saw a poster of some...

that's right... PANDAS!

AND this really big wheel that is used to dig tunnels that we recognized from a challenge on the Amazing Race.

We got to interact with stuff like peddling boats, marble mazes and riding old fashioned bicycles. We even watched Ashley and Dad do a crash test.

 Here's a video of our marble activity where we had to get a marble from one side to another using paper and wood blocks.

Also at the museum we did a chocolate adventure where we learned how chocolate is produced and got some free chocolate - YEAH! We also saw a video about PANDAS (as seen on the poster), and went to a planetarium because we're learning about the solar system right now in SCIENCE (spoken in your best Bill Nye voice).

On the way home it was a blizzard! Well not really, but it snowed like Elsa made it snow. We stopped by the wooden bridge and walked across. It was an old bridge that was made of wood. Then when crossed the bridge we got dinner and hot chocolate after.

The next day we took a train to Engelberg. We did a little skiing there. It was very very powdery and LOTS of snow. There was a lift that was shaped as a T and you grabbed hold of it and at the end you had to push it off of you and ski down the little hill and it was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, hard.

Then we went to our Iglu Dorf. Yes, that's right we stayed in an IGLOO!

We walked around to the many rooms and peeked in and saw many sculptures on the wall like Falcor (in our room), mushrooms, Rapunzel's castle, Belle's rose, and we got to see a ice sculpture of Rapunzel's chameleon, Pascal.

At the Iglu we ate supper, then we went to the hot tub. It was quite an adventure. They told us to bring flip flops and bathing suit, which we did, and on the way to the hot tub we had to run through very deep snow and it was like someone was building an ice skating rink and you fell in it as they were freezing it. It was really, really COLD.

Here's a video Daddy took. It's a little dark, but you should watch it anyway.

After the hot tub, we went to bed. Here is a picture of me in my sleeping bag.

The sleeping bag was warm but going to the bathroom was cold. So when you needed to use the toilet you thought, "Oh, do I really have to go?" Overall, I had a fun time!

After breakfast that morning we did a little more skiing, then went back to our apartment and slept the night snuggled in our warm beds. They next morning we flew home.

Northern Italy and Switzerland: Skiing in Zermatt

(Dad note: there are several videos in this post. They seem to only like to play on computers so if you're on a mobile device, including tablets, they may not playback right.)

Zermatt is my favorite place! It was a great place to learn how to ski. We started off by renting skis at Bayard Sport and then confirmed our lessons that we would be taking all week.

For dinner the first night we had a delicious meal at The Bubble, a yummy burger place.  The next day we woke up bright and early, ready for our ski lesson. We all laughed because of our overalls that we had to wear under our ski jackets. Aren't we stylish?

Then we left to meet up with our teacher for our lesson. It was particularly hard to get to our meeting spot at the Sunnega funicular because we had to walk across town in our ski boots, carrying all our gear: poles, skis, helmets, and goggles. When we got there our instructor with the Summit Ski School, Victoria, was waiting for us at the entrance. We took the funicular up and we were greeted by the view of the Matterhorn. In this video you will see the horribleness of my first time ever skiing. In the video you will also see my first fall!

We had lunch at the cafe at the top of Sunnega, but all the tables were taken inside, so we ended up outside in the snow. Cloudy, but not a bad view.

We were tired after our first day and slept really well!

The next morning, we did the same thing as before. Got ready, got on our ridiculous suspenders, and headed out the door. That day we started on the bigger hill in the learning area. It was hard the first time. Very very hard. I ended up going really fast straight down the hill. Not a pretty sight. But after about seven tries, I did my first time standing up, not falling. The video is of my seventh try, not my first. And here is Arya who was helped by Victoria almost the whole day.

That night we played in the snow in front of our apartment. It was very, very soft. We made snow angels and snow slides. We tried to make a snowman, but the snow was so powdery that it didn't hold together.

Later that night when Mom and Dad had just put us to bed, I lay there wiggling my tooth which had been loose the entire trip, and it came out! I already had a plan if that happened in bed. What I did was I crawled over to Arya's bunk bead and whispered, "I lost my tooth, be quiet, don't say anything." Then I tiptoed out my bedroom door and said calmly, "Mom... Dad..." they looked at me disgruntled because I was out of bed. Then I started jumping up and down and yelling, "I LOST MY TOOTH, I LOST MY TOOTH!" The next morning the tooth fairy left me five swiss franks.

On the third day, once again we got ready to go and headed out. Today, Mom and Dad headed out on the big run while we stayed at the Wolli park learning area with Victoria. Later that day, Arya, Victoria, and I did the big run once, and then a smaller blue run that was a lot of fun. The video is of us coming down the big hill for the first time. This is only a very small part of the run, just the ending.

We also did some exploring around town and shopping. With my five francs, I got a very small white teddy bear with a white dress that had a little red heart on it. Because of that heart, I named her Little Heart.

We saw many things around town. Lot of cowbells, swiss mountain dog stuffies, and mugs for beer. We even saw a movie in German!!! We saw Annie in a very cool movie theater with four chandeliers. When the movie was about to start all the chandeliers moved out of the way in a pulley system or something. We also stopped at a fun park that had a mini-zipline!

Our last dinner in Zermatt we had some Swiss fondue. The owner of the restaurant was walking around giving people free postcards with the picture of the restaurant in 1600. It is titled, The Best Cheesehouse in Town. He also showed us how to eat our fondue correctly. We kinda followed his instructions, but we also did it our own way. He was a nice, cheerful, old man that seemed to take a lot of pride in his restaurant.

By the end of the week we had gotten quite good and went down the big runs many times, even without Victoria. We were sad to go because we thought our skiing was over. But we did not know the surprises to come.