Follow my adventures while living in Italy with my husband and our two dogs Moose the whippet and Ruby the Australian Terrier. It's sure to be full of fun, frustration and cultural confusion.

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Carezza!

Yes another ski field, that's what my life is like at the moment, isn't that awesome? We are going to a different ski field each weekend!

Here I am, the knight of carezza (I think this is actually supposed to be the king that discovered this area??).

So Carezza is/was...

Very cold.  Usually I'm not cold when I ski but Sunday was very chilly,  Joe and I spent one very long chairlift ride composing a song about how f***ing cold we were.

This leads me to the next point,  a very long chairlift ride,  the facilities are a little dated at carezza.  One of the main chairs was not functioning well (we got a lot of stationary time to enjoy the view) and some  of the others were just a little old (and slow!). Also I have never seen so many pommer lifts on one ski field before.

The actual slopes were good fun,  though they were either very steep (and very fast and therefore fun) or rather flat. Basically the field has some great steep slopes on either side of the field with a series of flat runs and slow lifts connecting them. There are plans for two new chairs that I think will solve this problem and make carezza way betterer.

The snow was not fresh but in general it was ok, mostly soft and good cover though the main runs could do with a groom. I find skiing here really makes me appreciate how hard the folks at ruapehu work to keep their slopes jn the best possible condition they can be. The scenery though was STUNNING. Oh my goodness this is a beautiful place to ski
We also went with a pretty big group of friends,  which is the point isn't it?  Spending a wicked day on the slopes with a bunch of mates, is there anything better than that?

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Ski Field Review - Plose

So this past Sunday afternoon Joe and I went skiing with our friend Daniella-how awesome is it that we live somewhere that we can sleep in on a Sunday morning and decide to ski for the afternoon?  We went to Plose you can check it out at www.plose.org



Where is it?
Plose is just outside of Brixen/Bressanone (everything is in both Italian and german here). So we headed northeast up the valley on autostrada, got off at Brixen and climbed 7km up the mountain,  we were there in less than an hour.

Size?
Not small, it's part of dolomitisuperski but is not connected to any other fields, there are 40 km of piste including a 9km run from the top right down to the bottom of the cable car.  It's quite open (unlike oberreggen) with plenty of off-piste opportunities as well as a 'bavk country' area off to the side.

The snow? 
Was awesome!  Snowing on and off while we were there,  30 cm had fallen two days ago so while it wasn't super fresh there was still an opportunity to lay down a few fresh tracks.

The weather? 
Was not so hot. Visibility could be a bit patchy and it dnowed on and off but it did clear up at times, my goodness when it did it was beautiful!
The great thing? This meant there was no one there!  No queues,  empty runs, it was great.  Joe and I had the best time playing in the powder.

And the cost? 
Actually not bad, we were able to purchase three hour ski passes and joe even got a further discount for being a local, the two of us skied for just over 52 euro which is not bad at all.

We went home and wolfed down leftovers from the night before,  skiing is hungry work!

Ski field review - Reinswald

Ok, this is the first blog post I'm composing on my tablet,  so sorry if there are typos or things look a little messy...

Joe and I went skiing with our friend Luigi on 11 Jan at Reinswald. It was awesome!

Where is it?
Just under an hour north of Bolzano by car

How big is it?
Well there are only 14km of groomed pistes but there is loads of off-piste skiing to be had. There is a lot of variety
too, tree skiing,  powder bowls, alpine Meadows (literally you need to know where you can get over the fences). It reminded me of treble cone but an easier gradient and more lifts.

What was the snow like?
Not bad, no fresh powder but still lovely and soft off-piste on the upper half of the mountain.

How bout the weather? 
Pretty good until our last run of the day when the cloud came and we skied down blind. We were above the cloud most of the Day which made for some stunning views down the valley.

Best thing about it? 
Value for money! We paid twenty euro to ski for four hours and like four euronfor this giant strudel

Compared to any of the dolomitisuperski fields both the ski pass and food on the mountain was really affordable. This is because it is part of the "ortler ski arena" ski fields. These are smaller and aimed at locals as opposed to the massive superski fields which seem to have their eyes firmly set on the tourists.

Ok so one thing I haven't been able to manage on my tablet is to insert the ski map-you can google search for Reinswald undrr images and one will come up if your interested.

Joe and I will definitely be spending more time there,  especially as there is a bus that goes there that picks up just round the corner from us!