The Byron Bayern Blog: Christmas in Italy

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years! Can't believe 2008 is finished. What a year. I'll have to make another post on my favorites for 2008.

We decided to head down to Italy for Christmas since we heard back from an apartment finally last minute! We drove down through Switzerland for quite a bit of the drive, past St. Moritz and a dozen other famous ski resort towns who definetly had a lot of snow, arriving Christmas eve around 6pm at our apartment up in the Italian mountains in a small village called Sacco, 1.5 hours north of Milan and 7km up the hill from a city called Morbegno. The owners were super nice and had a fire lit for us when we arrived and a free bottle of red wine the owner made himself. We packed along turkey and broccoli cheese casserole, pumpkin pie and even pumpkin roll for ourselves and had a Christmas feast.

Christmas day, we drove up to Val di Mello, near the town San Martino to scope out the bouldering. It was beautiful out, though cold and snow covered, but Frank was able to find quite a few fun dry problems. After the sun went down and we were cold, we headed down into Morbegno for hot cocoa and sweets from this great cafe called Dolce Forno (sweet oven).
Friday, the snow came. Poop! It was so cold but the sun at least did come out. We decided to take the train to Milan to go eat at our favorite pizza resturant and supposedly 'the best in Italy', Pizza Spontini. We raced from the train the few blocks to the resturant we ate at 8 years before to make it to it before closing, and the darn place was closed for the holidays!! Such a bummer. Now we'll have to return again just so we can eat that pizza one more time. We then visited the Duomo downtown (third largest cathedral in the world) and ate at the awesome Galleria (steel and glass mall). Oh yeah, before I forget, if you ever go to Italy, make sure you are VERY careful with your belongings. Every time I go someone almost robs me... So maddening and makes me dislike Italy soley for that reason. And its so much dirtier than other places. I was walking down the stairs to hop on the metro, and Frank was to my left and I felt a tug on my right coat pocket. I smacked a hand and turned and screamed "Get OFF Me" to an older teenage girl who was trying to snag my camera! She failed since I felt her hand thank goodness. I wanted to punch her and push her down the stairs with that adrenaline rush, but my brain worked fast enough telling me being 8 months pregnant and on a steep stairwell pushing a woman would not be the brightest safest thing to do. That stupid girl acted as if she never touched me and ran back up the stairs to meet her friend who was just a few stairs behind her, and did not take our metro. I then placed everything in my inner pockets and zipped them up tight for the rest of the day. But even as I got off the metro, a stupid African guy with string pieces kept trying to talk to me and put a string on my wrist as I said no and tried getting him to leave me alone. He kept saying it was free and to represent freedom in such and such place, so then I felt bad and didn't resist as hard which allowed him to tie that stupid thing on my wrist. He then followed and asked me to pay for the stupid string! I gave him a 20 cent so he would leave me alone and he threw it on the ground mad and Frank about hit this guy at that point, but we kept going. Sometimes I can't stand people! I felt very suspicous of everyone in that city and could barely enjoy just walking around. Anyhow, back to the country we went for Sat and Sunday, bouldering in the mountains. I can only handle so much of the cities... Saturday we tried to go to Melloblocco where there is a bouldering competition every year in May. It is just at the very end of the valley, so higher up into the mountains, which meant much more snow. The boulders were covered and there was no chance of climbing. So, we found the only dry boulder we could back down the valley some and Frank managed to do a V8 in 15 degree weather! Brrr. That night we went out to dinner in Morbegno, a break from turkey and cheese sandwiches and had pasta and salad but no gelato. I can't believe we went to Italy without even having gelato! Sacrilage. Sunday, since the weather was not warming and the sun was not being so cooperative, we decided to check out and head home a bit early and save some of my leave for when I can have fun and actually climb again. Pretty cool trip though and definetly makes me want to return this spring with the baby!

Statue of Leonardo in front of La Scala