Christmas Day may have been the pinnacle of the holidays, but we were busy for the full 12 days of Christmas with lots of activities, starting out with the grandparents and cousins in Turin, and continuing once we returned home. Right after Christmas, we took the children along with their cousins, Benedetta and Giorgio, to visit a royal residence in Turin, not far from Marco's parents, which has recently been renovated, called the Reggia Venaria. They had an exhibition on knights, and the kids really enjoyed it. They had a special "treasure hunt" for the kids - they were given photos of certain objects throughout the exhibit, for example the photo of knight's armour that was made for a 3 year old, and they had to find it, write down the room number, and then if they submitted it at the end, they received a shield. Needless to say, the kids totally ate this up, and the other cool part is that Colin got a book about knights for his birthday from one of his classmates, so when we came home we looked up some of the things we had seen in the book. However, I noticed that the idea of the treasure hunt made them speed through the exhibit, paying more attention to looking for the next item to find rather than taking a chance to look around at all the wonderful objects on display. Once again, I found myself thinking that although my kids are getting older and it is starting to be fun to take them to museums, we still have a long way to go.....
The next day, Marco and I left our kids in the capable and very willing hands of their grandparents to take off snowshoeing in the mountains for a day, along with Marco's cousin's husband, Ernesto. We went to Moncenisio, literally crossing the border into France. We had a nice hike, LOTS of snow, so that was fun, although my legs were so sore by the end. The only problem was that it was VERY windy when we got out of the woods and toward the top of this part of the mountain. We were planning on hiking a little further, to a nice lake, but the wind put the kabosh on that. But the combination of the hiking, all that snow, and the heavy wind took its toll. I was so exhausted when we finished that I literally passed out in the car on the way home. Before we left, we stopped into a nice bar in the town where we had left the car, as the only other person we had seen on the hike was a man who mentioned that his wife runs the local bar. So we stopped to have a tea, and told the woman that we had seen her husband while we were snowshoeing. She was very friendly to us, but left it understood that she was not pleased that her husband had left her alone to take care of a very busy bar during the holidays so that he could have a nice hike in the mountains!
One of our other holiday activities was a trip to "Forte di Bard", about an hour outside of Turin, an old fort that was recently refurbished and reopened, and it was very impressive. They did a wonderful job with the place, adding 4 elevators to take you up to the fort, which sat, as most do, I suppose, high on a hill overlooking the valley. Inside there was one exhibition called "Le Alpi dei Ragazzi" or the Alps for Kids, which taught kids what an expedition on Monte Bianco is like (or Mont Blanc, as we Americans tend to call it, which pisses off the Italians to no end). It was very interactive, high tech stuff, with lots of different types of media. We started out getting our "gear". They had us put on helmets, harnesses, and roped us together on a rope team - Colin was the leader of our rope team. Then they taught the kids how to look up the weather forecasts for the day, using a computer with a webcam of the top of the mountain, then choose a route, using photos of various parts of the mountain, and the kids could decide which looked easiest to hike. Then they "packed" a virtual backpack, choosing from a group of items those that would not be needed for the ascent (cell phone, MP3 player) and those that were necessary (ice pick, crampons, and parmesan cheese - this was, obviously, an Italian expedition up the mountain). There was one part where they were simulating the walk across a glacier, and you had to stay on a certain path, if you stepped outside, there was a sound of breaking ice, apparently to symbolize that you had just plunged to your death in a crevasse. At one point, they took photos of us, and superimposed our faces on the bodies of climbers at the top of Monte Bianco - my kids loved this! There was also another very nice museum about alpine nature there, and once again, Colin kind of raced through that, but Lucia really seemed to get into it.
We headed back home on the 30th, as we had visitors arriving from Turin on the 31st to celebrate New Year's Eve with us - Marta and Alberto and their 2 children, Clara (4) and Paolo (2) came to ring in the new year. We made a big dinner and opened a very nice bottle of wine that Marco had received from work, so the adults ate and drank too much, or perhaps we just ate too much and drank far too little. The kids had a blast, we did some face painting with Lucia's new kits, had a dance party, ate ice cream, and topped it off with a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The kids, in fact, were still raring to go at 1am, when the adults, who were falling asleep on the couch, finally dragged them upstairs. Our guests stayed the next day and night as well, we took them to Bellagio to see the lake, and so that the kids could run around outside and get some fresh air. It was a wonderful visit, and it was nice for us to have some extended time with Marta and Alberto to catch up, rather than just quick visits when we are in Turin.
After that we kind of chilled at home, inviting some friends over to play one day. Marco went back to work on the 4th, but the kids didn't return to school until the 7th (here they always go back after the Epiphany). So I am back at work as well, and already planning our trip to the U.S. this fall.
