Playing It By Ear in Italy

WHEN WE LEFT for Italy late last week we didn't really have a plan other than to visit the village of Torre Pellice (explanation here). We had a hotel room for two nights -- near Pinerolo between the village and Torino -- but no real plan. And you know what? It can be really fun to travel like that because you end up going places you might not otherwise. For example, when we woke up on Thursday morning we looked at the beautiful snow-peaked mountains and decided we needed to go up to the snow for the morning. We decided on Sestriere, the gorgeous ski village that hosted the olympic alpine events during the 2006 Games. We walked around the village, shopped a bit at the Christmas marche, had a great pizza lunch, and watched the skiers zig-zag down the mountain. Had no plans to go to Sestriere, but sure glad we did.

This might need some explaining: I got a bit excited because this is the ski jumping venue at the '06 Games (and I've never seen a ski jumping venue before) so I thought Henry and I should 'pose' like ski jumpers. Didn't really turn out, I know.

We like road signs, what can I say.

Street Snowman Photo!