Still jittery with excitement from our recent engagement, we made our way via several trains and buses to the city of Trento to meet Lisa's dad, Dave, and her step-mom, Dawn, who had been in Milan at a water-ski tournament. We had no idea where the hotel was but after wandering away from the train station we managed to find it just as Dave and Dawn were unloading their car. It was a treat to stay at a nice hotel where we weren`t sharing a bathroom with the rest of the floor. Trento was a typical Italian city in that there was a beautiful old section inside of a wall with narrow cobblestone streets surrounded by industrial ugly shit architecture. It was good to be with people a little less used to Italy because it kept us from taking the Italian-ness for granted!
The next day we went for a walk and took a cable car to the top of a hill. It was in stark contrast with the cable cars in Switzerland in that it cost 90 cents as opposed to 30euros. Then again the cable cars in Switzerland didn`t seem like they would crash down at any second.
We left Trento and headed towards the small town of Asolo stopping to visit Dave's friend`s water ski camp. We stayed in another really nice hotel in Asolo and had a great time seeing another town we had not yet been to. One night we went out to dinner with Dave`s Italian distributor and had fun practicing our Italian. As usual we learned why italy was the best place in the world and that this region was the best part of Italy. We also hiked up to a castle where with some fatherly encouragement Lisa decided to climb on the thirteenth century walls. A stone pulled out and she tumbled down and has been limping ever since. Karma?
The next day we were making our way towards Milan and randomly decided to stop at a town on Lago Garda. It ended up being perfect weather so we rented a boat and toured around the lake taking plenty of time to just relax and swim. Afterwards we went to the town of Sirmione which I had never heard of, but apparently everyone else has as it was packed with tourists. And for good reason as often times seems to be the case.
The next day we all headed to the Milan airport where we would say our goodbyes and Lis and I would take a shuttle to Milano Centrale and work our way to Chamonix. On the way we stopped for gas and in typical parental fashion and keeping up with our rental car luck, Dave filled the tank with diesel instead of unleaded. Luckily we made it to the airport and dropped the car before we saw any results of this new diet.
It turned out to be a huge pain in the ass to get from Milan to Chamonix and took two days even tough its only about 200 kilometers. I guess we were crossing the highest mountain range in Europe. More specifically there is a tunnel that goes under the highest point in Europe.
Chamonix was amazing. The mountains are crazy spikes that lend endless climbing opportunities. The first day we were there the weather was good and knowing it was supposed to change we hopped on a cable car to get to some alpine rock! It was just sport climbing but in an alpine setting in the fog that made it feel much more serious. We were glad that we climbed that day because the weather did change and we spent the next few days hiking, getting rained off of lower crags and drinking hot chocolate in a patisserie. At one point we met up with some friends, Jena and John, who were there on their honeymoon and had just climbed mount Blanc.Finally on our last day there the weather cleared and we had perfect blue sky. We hiked up for 2 1/2 hours to a point on the map that showed a sport climbing park. While it was absolutely beautiful, we didn`t see any climbing opportunities that did not involve a full alpine rack (we sent ours home in the spring) and it was a bit annoying after such a long hike to still be surrounded by tourists who were pouring off of a tram. We were able to hike just a little further though and have a whole lake to ourselves which was a great way to end our time in the mountains! By the way, Lisa is fine :-)
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