Cross Country Skiing and Hiking in Cogne (Aosta Valley) Italy

Next to the Gran Paradiso Park is a small cross country ski town called "Cogne" or I think I will start calling it "winter wonderland".  Cogne is about 2.5 hours from us and it lies in Aosta Valley.  It is well known for Cross Country skiing, ice climbing, hiking, etc in the Gran Paradiso park. 

Friday night we had dinner at the Le Bar a Fromage.  I only remembered to take pictures of the  appetizer and dessert. :-)

The next morning we hit the cross country trails for a couple of hours.

  

 On Sunday we decided to get out and hike in the snowy park:

Sasha got a little excited in the snow....

 

Volandia Museum of Flight at MXP

Monday was a Holiday in Italy so we ventured off to the Volandia Museum of Flight outside of MXP airport and what a treat! 

Merano, Italy for Skiing (kind of)....

After a great New Years celebration we decided to take a trip to Merano (NE corner of Italy) to partake in skiing, hiking, and sight seeing.  The first day we decided to walk around the town while we are adjusting to jet lag.  Merano has a picturesque promenade called "Tappaneir" and we captured some really pretty sites along the way.  Merano sits in a valley and is surrounded by mountain views.

Main shopping and strolling area

On the promenade

Christmas Market

This is a goulash soup, a common dish for the area

Day 2 was meant for hitting the slopes.  What I didn't know was that this was the largest skiing weekend in Italy and they did not have any ski equipment left to rent! what?!!  Oh well, lessons learned during the expat life! We could not bring our ski equipment in our air shipment (too large for the size requirements) so we have to rent it.  But they did offer an alternative and I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but we went sledding down the side of the mountain and it was a little fun (dorky, but fun).... :-)

We finished off the evening with a trip to the Terme di Merano, which are pools with mineral-rich water and then a nice meal.