Summer Sights

Here are views from several short day-trips we took over the summer. First, a family day at a nature area of caves and waterfalls in Fregona, an hour away...





Next, a girls' and kids' day trip to Cison di Valmarino to see the Castel Brando and the Prosecco wine region. The castle was built in Roman times and has been in use and added on to constantly since then. It is also a hotel and spa now. First the castle shots...


Funicular train track to the top...


View from the top....


The lower courtyard...

Andrew, Sara, and Ally in an exposed ancient part of the castle...



Our beautiful lunch spot, the Cafe Roma...


Then on to a hike on a trail for the vineyard views of the Prosecco region, in the town of Valdobbiadene, just a half hour further west. Here are Ally, Andrew, Laura, Sara and little Sam.





What a view!!!



And of course, we bought some Prosecco to take home!

And last, a family Saturday to Piancavallo, the little ski town we go to up the mountain. We did a little hiking and had an outdoor lunch next to our favorite ski runs. Sure looks different when it's green!







The kids made some new friends...




Next up for August ... Switzerland!

Our Yard

I have never really shown the yard and outside of the house to the family who are NOT coming over to visit (you know who you are, shame on you.) So here it is. A perfect yard for a big Italian garden, but -sigh- we are never in one place long enough to get the full benefit of all that work. All yards here are fenced and gated -- ALL the way around. Andrew just got done mowing this...

The house faces east. Mountains are north. This is the view from the front porch. The little stone structure with a roof is our walk-in gate and drive-in gate.


View from front porch looking towards the right (south). The house you see is someone else's across the street.


View of the front of house, taken from the gate...


View from the far front southeast corner of our yard, looking north AT our house...


Same far front southeast corner, looking left to the large side of our yard...


View from back southwest corner near trampoline looking at the south side of the house...


View of back (west) and side (south) side of the house...


The little walkway under the porch with storage under the front stairs...

Up A Tree

Laura and I took our crew up the mountain to the high ropes course. She didn't have her little Sam since he was in Italian preschool that day, but she did have her 16-year-old cousin, Ally, who is visiting here for the summer. The three kids were thrilled to experience something so new and different. Here they are getting instructions after they were "geared up." They had to follow a lot of safety rules and learn how to use their carabiners and zip line equipment.


The platforms in the trees were about 30 feet high. They had to make it through each of the 15 rope challenges between the trees. Some were easy and some were really tough. Sara was the youngest age they would allow (8) so I was really proud of her for completing the course! She was light and agile, which helped, but she also had shorter legs and arms, which didn't help!







And finally the big, fun, fast finish on the zip line! Whee!



I've always said they were monkeys!!! They ate a big lunch after this and got some well-earned gelato too! And that evening we went and saw the Harry Potter movie finale. What a great day!