Italy

Monday Sept 1 2014

Was a little nervous about plane reservations working out because the very first reservation of our whole trip was a car service I reserved to take us to the airport and it never showed.  Thank you UBER for being available to bring us to the airport on time!!  But everything went very smoothly on the planes.  Barely slept on the planes even though that was the plan – just wasn’t tired.

Arrived in Munich at 10am.  It’s a lot cooler than I thought it would be and very cloudy.  How awesome was it to be greeted by our friends after we collected our bags!!!  Never traveled internationally before with friends so it was a nice treat to be picked up by Tracy and Ed and have them help us through our jet lag.

We drove from Munich to Corvara, Italy at the base of the Dolomites with a quick stop in Austria for lunch.  Even though it was at a rest stop, my lunch of a frankfurter (no, not like Oscar Mayer kind), roasted potatoes and sauerkraut was pretty good.  (Ok, I had a bite of sauerkraut and gave the rest to Joe since he loves it!).  However, Tracy’s lunch of roast pork “stew” was the winner.  Rich and delicious.  And what a bonehead I was (or sleep deprived) that I didn’t get any photos of our first meal in Europe.  DOH!

The drive was really beautiful especially once we crossed over into Italy where the sun came out and the lighting was gorgeous against the landscape, picking out green valleys with mossy hillsides, trees, and the occasional castle.  Then we got on an incredibly narrow winding road going up to a mountain pass, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from getting car sick (I was sitting in the back seat).  Ugh.  I was so thankful to get out of the car at our lodging for the next 2 nights, Ciasa Blancia in Corvara.

It’s a little pensione with several rooms.  Our rooms on the 2nd floor have a stunning view from our balconies!  That's the picture above and this one:

We had dinner somewhere in Corvara (I’ll try to be better about getting names of places we eat at) where we got pizzas.  At first we thought we would just get one pizza and share it as an appetizer, but it turned into 3 pizzas and two bottles of red wine.  Living la dolce vita baby!!

Unbelievably I am awake (and functioning)  and it’s 10:30pm my first night.   Can’t wait to have my head lay down on that pillow though!