Che Meraviglia!!

I love that expression. Often used by Italians to express delight or marvel. It's the reaction we often get when we tell Italians we are from Canada. Wow Canada, 'e il mio sogno', its my dream to go there they tell us as their eyes and faces light up in delight. We just spent a week skiing in the Dolomites and I can't think of a better expression - che meraviglia! We've always heard such wonderful things about the Dolomites and certainly the reviews on websites we researched describing these range of mountains use such adjectives and superlatives that our expectations were ratcheted up to the extreme. With such expectations, I feared disappointment. 

Simona hot-doggin it!

Rugged, dramatic, imposing, frightening, jaw-dropping, mesmerizing and on and on I could go. Not as high as the French or Swiss Alps, the Dolomites are nonetheless breathtaking in their beauty and grandeur. As a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site its peaks are included in UNESCO's list of the most beautiful mountains in the world. As Nancy noted it is impossible to capture in pictures let alone words how vast and strikingly stunning this area is. For the avid, expert skier, more challenging skiing (a greater number of steeper tougher blacks) can be had in France and Switzerland but from what we experienced it is hard to imagine a setting more picture perfect. 

Having snowed quite a bit the week before, we got lucky with fabulous ski conditions. With the exception of some cloud cover for half a day Tuesday and one cold and windy day Wednesday the skies were as blue as I've ever seen them and a healthy application of sunscreen was a must throughout the week. There were times where the sun literally seemed to shine down upon the granite peaks like a huge flood light. It had a surreal feel to it as though the jagged peaks were man-made, paper-mâché almost. 

Turn off the lights!

The Dolomites are comprised of 1200 km of runs and 12 ski areas of which Val Gardena is one. We stayed in the village of Selva, Val Gardena from which it is literally possible to never have to ski the same run twice in one week.  I did a fair bit of skiing on my own the first 3 days as Nancy and the girls took lessons.  The first day I skied clockwise (the orange route) around the Sellaronda, a 42 km route which takes between 4 and 6 hours depending upon lift lines and makes its way around the stunning Sella Group peaks linking 4 ski areas in the Dolomites. On Wednesday Simona, Maddy and I joined two Dutch families staying at our hotel for an all day outing to Monte Lagazuoi, the site of numerous battles between the Italians and Austrians during World War I.  There remains a series of interconnected caves and tunnels that were built and used during the war that one can walk through and visit while hiking in the summer.

Having completed 4 days of lessons, Nancy joined the girls and I on Thursday and we tackled the Sellaronda but this time doing the counter-clockwise green run.  It was an exercise in patience for the girls and I waiting for mom every 400-500 meters (literally) but to Nancy’s credit, she completed the outing as overcome with fear as she was. 

Interestingly, we discovered that there is a small community of about 30,000 people in this mountainous part of Northern Italy that speak a language called Ladin (or Ladino as the Italians refer to it).   Not a mere dialect, it is officially recognized in Italy with some official rights in the Trentino-Alto Adige region.   Try as we did, we were not able to understand it when locals spoke it among themselves. 

Sal