Spring Break 2010...Woo Hoo!

The day before I left for Italy (now six months in the rearview mirror) my friend Sean from Seattle told me he was planning on coming to visit me. On March 6th our planning came together and we met in the Geneva airport to start our Spring Break adventure together. The plan was to take the bus to Courchevel and meet up with Olivia for a few days of snowboarding and partying, Brit style, burn Sean's snowboard and then take the train to Italy for a week of sightseeing in Bologna, Venice and Rome.

This was my second trip to Courchevel to visit Olivia and I was excited to be going back, to see her and to be in the mountains again. Irrespective of anything, Courchevel is an amazing town and offers a fantastic experience, but it is a distant second to the wonders Chamonix offers.

For me, getting to Courchevel is a pretty easy, multi-modal adventure if not slightly convoluted. It begins with the ritualistic descent of the four flights of stairs in my apartment while hauling a snowboard and bags loaded with the requisite gear. This is almost enough to get me to stay home. But after reaching the street and lugging everything through the middle of town to the bus stop there is no turning back. It’s a short bus ride (the ride is short, the bus is regular length) to the train station, a six hour train to Milan with an hour lay-over there and another six hour train to Geneva. The scenery on this leg is phenomenal including the last hour following the shores of Lake Geneva. If I took the overnight train out of Ancona the sun will just be coming up as we reach the shores of the lake and the water will sparkle and the mountains pulse. Arriving in Geneva I take a city bus from the train station to the airport and then climb aboard the bus to Moutiers where I transfer to a shuttle van for the last leg to Courchevel and a badly needed pot of fondue and beer. See? Easy.

For trips of this distance I usually book the Eurostar trains in Italy. They cost a bit more, but tend to be newer, in better condition and more comfortable. Your ticket gets you a reserved seat on a fast train that makes few stops and each car has a storage area for luggage. The Intercity and Regionale trains are great alternatives for inexpensive, local trips but stop everywhere along their routes and don’t offer much in the way of rider accommodations. They just get you there, usually on time. For the Milan to Geneva leg I always hope to get a Swiss train because they are immaculate and the seats come with outlets for charging Ipods and laptops. I usually over-pack a lunch and snacks for the trip and my backpack looks a bit like one of those clown cars as sandwiches, fruit, cookies, chocolate, juice boxes, chips and candy comes tumbling out. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but you can get a decent café from the snack cart although you pay stadium prices for it.

Leaving Sean and Spring Break behind for just a moment, the best part about my first trip to Courchevel was meeting Olivia in front of Rocky’s Bar (it’s where everyone is unloaded upon arriving in town) and before even taking my luggage to the room we were having a Kronenbourg and chatting away like we were still in Chamonix rather than not having seen each other for five months. For the rest of the story, follow this link for her description of the visit and check-out this one for photos.

Now back to Sean and our trip (sorry Sean). If you’ve followed this blog at all, you’ve already seen loads of pictures from Courchevel, Bologna, Venice, and Rome and read my impressions of them. And if you haven’t, look them up.

While the Johnny Come Latelys are doing their homework, rather than drag the rest of you through old news again, I’ve posted a short slide show here (short for me anyway) of some pictures and I’ll just mention a few of my highlights from the trip.

• The Excel spreadsheet I made to plan our trip.
  
  
  
• Meeting Sean in Geneva. We’d both traveled long distances from disparate cities but to meet-up in the Geneva airport was as natural as could be.
  
• Watching Sean adjust to the European, and especially, Italian pace of life. There really is a difference and it was fun to see him settle into it.
  
• The pizza we ate our second night in Bologna. We chanced upon the restaurant while looking for another one and liked the look of it. The pizza stretched four inches off the plate it was served on and was the best I’ve had in Italy so far. I have the restaurant’s card and will take you there if you visit but I’m not revealing anything else.
  
• Learning a new term for the French: Cheese Eaters.
  
• Reliving the moments when I first saw Venice through Sean as I watched him walk out the train station and catch his first glimpse of the city.
  
• Having our train to Rome delayed three hours because an unexploded bomb from WWII was being removed from near the Rome Termini station.
  
• Walking in the Villa Borghese park in Rome. It was a lot like Forest Park in Portland except with more rollerbladers and 400 year old statues.
  
• Climbing the 521 steps to the top of the dome in St. Peter’s and then catching the first glimpse of the views of Rome.
  

Pasqua (Easter) is a major holiday in Italy (I know, big surprise). People here are still amazed when I tell them that we don’t get time off for it in the US. They always ask a variation of, “What days do you get off for Easter?” I tell them, “Sunday.” Anyway, our office will be closed for a few days so some of us are going on a little trip as the custom in these parts. On Saturday afternoon we’re off to Cesena, home of the first public library in Europe, but also the club Vidia where the Gomma Gommas will be performing. After spending the night in Bologna with Valentina’s parents it’s road trip time as we (Valentina, Giordano, Miki, me) head west to Tuscany to visit the cities of Lucca and Pisa. We’ll of course see the tower in Pisa but there is also a cathedral that is supposed to be amazing. I’m most excited for Lucca. The old part of the city is still ringed by the medieval walls. They are 12 meters or so tall, 10 meters wide and about 5 kilometers around. The top has been converted into a park with walking and biking paths. We plan to hire bikes and hit the circuit. I should have a story about the trip ready by the 4th of July.