Snowed-in, Monchiero Alto, Italy.

As I mentioned in my Leaning Tower of Pisa post, we left Pisa to unknowingly drive smack-dab into a crazy snowstorm on the Mediterranean coast in Liguria. The snow was coming down so fast and so strong that emergency vehicules were being placed every mile to help stranded cars...

...and guess who still had on their summer tires.

Les Duggans.

And I quote a certain physicist who once said: "Pffft. It never snows in Italy!"

So needless to say, there are no pictures of the 6 hour drive from Pisa to Monchiero Alto as I was too busy holding my breathe, covering my eyes, and grabbing onto the oh-merde handle.

It was very pretty though.

We checked into the hotel at about 9:15 PM, and I think it was written all over our faces that we were exhausted and hungry. Our hotel was a monastery-turned-spa called Antico Borgo Monchiero, and the staff was the most attentive of any I've ever encountered. Not only that...

...but there were slippers and robes in our room. It really is the little things...

We were only scheduled to spend one night at the monastery-turned-spa (isn't that really just the best combination around?), but mother nature had other plans. Over a foot of snow was dumped on the little town of Monchiero Alto throughout the night and following day, and there was no way we were a) getting the car out of the parking lot and b) getting the car down the steep hill that we fishtailed the whole way up in the first place.

And as if I'm not thinking it as loud as I can right now, I will go ahead and say that this was not the worst place in the world to be snowed in either.

 

There were only two other people staying at Antico Borgo while we were there, and for some reason they didn't use the spa services at all, or at least not during the hours upon hours that we did.

My motto for the day was: sauna-whirlpool-repeat...

And all the while looking out the window at the snow just piling up.

It was incredibly surreal.

The deets on the place? The food was amazing and at a really great price. The staff was amazing and actually came to get us in the spa to let us know that the restaurant would be closing for lunch but "would we like a sandwich?" And the concierge even helped Doc dig us out of this mess without asking him.

 

We will definitely be staying at this hotel again, however, maybe in the fall when there's a less likely chance of snow...

 

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey

24 hour train strike in Italy.

One thing I've learned about traveling in Europe - the best laid plans always go up in a beautiful sparkle of flames. Kaboom. Whether it's volcanoes keeping planes grounded, earthquakes in Italy that no one seems to actually know happened, or avalanche warnings, something can and will most likely go wrong. The key is making something interesting out of the wrong.

On Wednesday we learned that there would be a train strike in Italy from 9 PM Thursday to 9 PM Friday, which meant that we would not find ourselves eating truffle gnocchi in Florence on Friday night as we had previously planned. But when Italy hurls lemons at you, what do you do? You make limoncino and then finish up with an espresso...or, as was the case last night, a few Tennant Scotch Ales and a midnight kebab with a bunch of Pisan and physicist students.

This also afforded us an extra morning to do some touristy things together for once - like go into Pisa's Duomo and then go to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Because let's be serious, after a late night full of Higgs boson discussions, scotch ale, really bad House music and late night kebabs, is there anything else you'd rather do at 10 AM than walk to the top of a tower that leans more than slightly to the left? Obviously not.

And then there was the snowstorm on the Mediterranean in Liguria slowing everything down that continued into Piedmont on our long drive to Monchiero later in the afternoon...and its still snowing out now...

But it's a hell of a lot nicer watching from the window of our former monastery/castle turned spa hotel, then it was holding my breathe and closing my eyes as we traversed slick and windy roads on top of cliffs, being passed by Italian drivers going way too fast...

...and honestly, if we get "stuck" here another night because of the snow, I am more than a little ok with that.

Bonne nuit tout le monde!

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey