Only 6 Months Late

So six months later, I'm posting all about the final stop on our trip, Italy. FishCakes and I were playing heated games of speed scrabble and after getting smoked, Kaycie decided that it was high time that I finished the blog. Can't really blame her though, it's hard to compete with words like aardvark and herpes. Have you ever seen an aardvark? They're awesome. Arthur is an aardvark. Cakes wants me to point out that she also had good words like swervy and recondite.

Anyway, Italy, though devoid of aardvarks, was fantacular. The night before we left Interlaken for Italy, Kaycie learned how to use a can opener on a pocket knife. Even though we couldn't actually get the stew out of the can, her first attempt was a great success.

Rawr!!

After leaving Interlaken, Switzerland, we drove through scads of tunnels to Italy. Those Swiss love their tunnels. Also, I learned something important when speaking German. Schweiz, pronounced shvytz, is not the same as Schweiss, pronounced shvyss. The first means Switzerland, the second means sweat. But I'm sure that old lady understood that I didn't really think that the sweat was very beautiful.

Back to Italy. We drove to a little town called Pinzolo in northeastern Italy. A tiny villiage surrounded by vineyards with a quaint little chuch on the hill above it. We got there in the evening and while the mountains were beautiful, we were a little underwhelmed. We were expecting the Alps, like in die Schweiz. Here there were pretty big forested mountains with clouds on top. Well, right before sunset, the clouds parted.

We felt a little better after that.

The next day we drove up to a slightly bigger town called Madonna di Campiligo higher up the valley. There we planned our trip through the many viae ferrata (how the heck do you pluralize via?) for the days we were there. We decided to do a two day hike through the tops of the mountains. We started by taking a tram a ways up and after hiked up to the ridge of peaks. We hiked along this ridge, going over and around the peaks, alternating from trails to via ferrata.

Kaycie going up one of the longer ladders

Same ladder

Shrine at the top. Apparently,
it's a dangerous ladder

After a rest at a "hut" (they call them huts, but they are more like little hotels because you can get a bed, a hot shower, a cold drink and a steak. Europeans know how to rough it when they backpack.), we went on a second via ferrata to the next "hut" where we spent the night. It was in a little hanging valley just below the tops of the mountains below what is left of a glacier. We got a bunk bed in a room with two other people and a big dinner of spagetti and meatballs, steak and fries and chocolate mousse. We figured we deserved it after doing 12 miles in that rough terrain, a third of which was on via ferrata. We slept really well, and by 8 the next morning, we were back on the trail. (We completely forgot to get a picture of the hut we stayed at.) We continued along the ridge trail for another 8 miles before making the 5 mile trek back down to the little town in the valley.

Kaycie mumbling curse words at me under
her breath for making her do this.

Some of the via ferrata had tricksy bits.

I had just come across that wire

When we got back to our campsite late that night, we showered and then went to the only restaraunt in town, which luckily was right next to our campground. They made all their pasta fresh everyday there. It was some of the best food we had on the trip.

Then we made the trip down to Venice. Venice was really neat, with all the canals and stuff. It was also hot, crowded and expensive. I ate a lot of gellato though, that was only a euro for a big cone.

After one day in Venice, we left to go back to Hukeswagen. We spent a night in Innsbruck, Austria and had some of the best pizza ever and saw a fantastic sunset.

Once we got into southern Germany, I decided to see what our little fiat could do on the Autobahn when Cakes was napping. I managed to get to 170 km/hour. For us Americans, that's only 105 mph. I was getting passed constantly by BMW's and Benz's.

We were excited to get back and see the Olenders' after two weeks of camping. They are such a great family. Ziggy and I watched Formula 1 race which was cool, Eva's food and hospitality were amazing, Margarete was tons of fun and a great tour guide while we were there, and I spent most of my free time playing with Boni the cat. Boni always wanted to come into our bedroom. He would sneak in when we'd open the door and hide under the bed. Then he'd swipe at our feet from under the bed skirt. He scared the crap out of Kaycie a few times. Thomas was a great guy and took us to a latin concert which was great fun. Moritz, Margarete's boyfriend, was a lot of fun to be with.

The Olenders. Not pictured: Thomas and Moritz.

Notice Boni the cat staring right at Kaycie. She was his
favorite target.