Day to Day Scene: Sun, pasta, wine...and family!

So after much anticipation not only are my parents here, but Penny and I were accompanying them to Italy for a much needed break. I can tell you now though...it wasn't long enough. We stayed at my Aunt Alma's and she was fantastic in taking care of us. Brilliant food, lots of wine, and excellent company!

Wednesday night we arrived in Milan Malpensa airport, and picked up the car. After my parents and I reached an understanding about their advice and comments on my driving were off to Ivrea to visit Alma. We were doing about 130kms, in the slow lane...and getting passed. This is apparantly normal. We arrived at Alma's to a surprise...my cousin Marita was there with her husband Declan so it was nice to see them, unfortunately they left early the next morning.

Thursday was mostly spent vegging, on the porch and enjoying the sun, as well as a wee tour of the Spanish house on the property which was restored and is absolutely awesome. The photo's are on Penny's camera, so you'll have to wait till she gets around to putting them up! Sitting in the sun with a few cold beer, just what I needed.

Friday we all went to a big market and haggled with everyone for everything! Alma excels at getting good value that's for sure. It definetely reminded Pen and I of being in Asia! After the market Penny and I went for lunch and had champagne by the caraffe (2 to be specific) and most excellent pasta in a wee restaurant. We then decided it was a great day for a picnic...and getting bevvied, so we took a romantic wee walk to the supermarket, where we bought a romantic wee bottle of Australian wine which leaked all over us (in a romantic way) on the way out (fortunately we were able to switch it for a good one!) and then took an even more romantic walk up a green walkway underneath the castle. Ivrea's castle once had four towers, however somewhere along it's storied past an accident saw explosives blow apart one of the four towers....oops. The rest of the castle is still in pretty good standing though! We had our bottle of wine, and sat in the shade enjoying our holiday. That is up until I noticed a tunnel with a fence over it....hmmm, time to investigate! So I promptly climbed the fence and entered the pitch black tunnel which must have been an exit point from the castle once upon a time. It was pitch black, but not being the quickest bunny in the dark tunnel I kept going on until I found a low wall about a foot high. I decided to see what was on the other side and found that it went about 5...6....7 feet down until I slipped and absolutely scared the hell outta myself. Not knowing exactly how much further down it dropped I grabbed frantically at the side of the wall I was slipping down and managed to grab the top of the wall before my hands slipped over it...I pulled myself up and shaking with a touch of adrenaline decided sunshine was good. I managed to slice up my right arm pretty good....so much so that Penny was most not amused. Turns out I must have been only inches from the bottom. I used the flash from the camera to return and explore (told you I wasn't the quickest bunny) and found that the tunnel went on a ways and then turned left...however without any means to light my way I decided that Alma's and a cold beer sounded good...so off we went. We got back and found out we were going to see Larry's new place...however being as I was half cut my dad had to drive...which I think he enjoyed...more so than my mother anyway! You can see the photo's of the place in an earlier section of the blog. Afterwards we went to Larry and Anna's house and had a great meal, and I got harrassed by my wee cousins Alecia and Emilia (Larry and Anna's girls). Hey, what are cousins for?

Saturday was our last day! We went into town and bought a print of an old drawing of Ivrea, a sort of house warming gift for ourselves!! Then we had a gelatto on the way back, and decided to drive up to see the Matterhorn, or Cervino in Italian. It is pretty awesome and at 4,478 metres (14,693 feet) is pretty damn big! About the same as the climb Dereck and I did in the Atlas mountains in Morocco.

It was one of the last mountains to be climbed largely due to the "fear it inspired" in climbers, and the group of seven who conquered it were subject to ill fate. One of them slipped and fell into the others snapping the rope that held them. Four of the seven climbers plunged to their death 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) below on the glacier below. Success, but at a cost. We had a much more mellow experience, we had a beer/coffee in one of the few restaurants/bars open at that time of the year, then headed down. It was intersting that we went from 25 degrees when we left to about 5 up in the alps...it was pretty fricking freezing Mr Bigglesworth. We got back, had a late dinner, a bit of wine...and went to bed.

Sunday we got up, said our goodbyes...wished we had more time, and got to the airport only to be delayed on the runway for about half an hour, which delayed us by over an hour all together. Then I forgot our ticket to get out of the long stay carpark, then we got home and our electricity had run out (we're on paycards and were supposed to get switched to montly bills) and the freezer had melted and so the floor was soaking, and the food ruined...welcome home. Still it was good to get away! Next time we def need more time though!!