Northern Italy

Last week, we drove to Northern Italy to spend the week in the Dolomite Mountains. It is only about a 5 1/2 hour drive from here, and as you head into Italy, it is truly one of the prettiest highways in the world. You have the mountains, topped with snow, but green fields (because it is Spring), you have castles and churches along the entire route, and vineyards and apple orchards the entire way too. It is so pretty! We stayed in a town called Cavalese, which is a ski town up in the mountains. They still had a few runs open, but we only hiked (no skiing this trip). There is something so unbelievably peaceful about the mountains, and I especially loved having no internet/electronics for the week. We had a very relaxing week, with lots of walking/hiking, a stop in Innsbruck, Austria, and a day trip into Bolzano. Lots of Board games, pizza and gelato too!!! We have a rule in Italy - you  have to have Gelato each day (we can feed our family for a total of 5 euro for 5 cones - so it isn't expensive, just a treat! :-).  They also had a Coffee machine in the local Supermarket (The Italians love their Cappachinno and Espresso). It only cost .40 cents for a coffee! That was a delicious daily treat too!  I am so grateful for the opportunity to travel with my family - my favorite memories are these times together!!!

On the way down to Italy, we stopped in Innsbruck, Austria. The clouds covered the mountain in the back ground, but it is a beautiful city

Innsbruck is so pretty! 

Bryan got the photo! It is always a joke of ours to see if the border crossing photo will come out or not :-)

This is a sample of the highway into Italy - gorgeous!

And tons of castles along the route too!

Yahtzee! By the end of the week, we exhausted the board games, but I relished the fact that we had no internet for the week!!! The kids - not so much :-)

I love these girls!

A tower across from where we stayed - so pretty all lit up

One of our hikes. Each day the kids moaned and groaned, but once we had some fresh air and exercise, all was much better :-)

This was at the bottom of the valley from where we stayed - such a pretty hike!!!

I was excited to translate a few Italian words - Cascata means waterfall (cascades) - hence the picture of the waterfall :-)

Still just a bit of snow (I am sure the winter was gorgeous - not much fun driving though! You need chains on your tires in the winter!

The Cascade (as advertised in the sign above). Gorgeous!!!