Had a great time with Stefano and Rafaella at Sport Alpina Hotel in Madesimo Italy. They day we arrived it snowed. Had to put on chains only 1.2 kilometers from the hotel! But they were in desperate need of snow so no one was complaining. The alps are beautiful despite the numerous hairpin turns on steep cliff edges. We ate a lot of good food. We ate at their Michelin 5 Star restaurant, having 17 courses of fantastic food. Every dish was an artist’s masterpiece and oh so delicious. Even the breakfasts were excellent. One thing we really liked was Italian Bresaola, which is “air-dried, salted beef that has been aged two or three months until it becomes hard and turns a dark red, almost purple colour,” according to Wikipedia.

Above are some of the dishes. When we got the first plate we thought, “Not a problem. Seventeen courses of these tiny things will be no sweat.” Ha! By the end the belts were getting loosened since we didn’t want to miss out on any dish.

The picture on the right is at the bottom of the mountain just before heading up to Madesimo. The picture on the left is the frozen solid river not so running through the town of Madesimo. What a difference!

It was a fun time in the ski resort. Just wish we were prepped for skiing. We did have a lot of fun cruising the town and seeing the sights. Thank you to Stefano and Rafaella and to Weezie Mott for making this part of the trip possible!

For more photos follow this link to our Google Drive Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_wyy48LLyhLQVpWZlZqVmRDVDA?usp=sharing