The best opera performance ever!

We had a bit of an adventure today! Left the hotel at 7:45 am to drive around to the other side of the mountain where this alleged opera was going to be held: at the Pian della Nana.

I had seen the above photo on the Sounds of the Dolomites website after reading an article about the festival itself, and this place just looked too stunning to be real. So when it turned out that the Barber of Seville opera was going to be performed in this natural amphitheater on Sat Aug 31st at 12 noon, that is when the trip got formulated. Finally today was the day!

We found out last night that actually the start time was being moved 1 hr earlier to now start at 11 am. Good thing we found out! Anyway, we drove and followed the pink signs and eventually got to the place where cars were being parked. We had just over an hours hike from the car to get to the venue at Pian della Nana. There were plenty of other people doing exactly the same (~95% were Italian), so we all hiked along a path up and around into the place shown above. The farm buildings that are shown turned out to be used for bathrooms and a pop-up restaurant serving food and drinks, and the actual opera was being performed on a patch of grass out in the middle of the photo.

The 4 piece orchestra was setting up as we approached: 1 piano, 1 cello and 2 violins. We heard the cast members practicing as we approached, but we didn't really see them.  It turns out that we were not supposed to see them because they were totally camouflaged to look like normal audience members dressed in hiking clothes the same as everyone else! But after the orchestra played their overture for a few minutes, the 4 cast members stood up amongst the crowd and started peeling off their hiking clothes to then put on their costumes which were in bags and backpacks next to them! 

The Barber of Seville got underway, and it was just fabulous. The clouds and the light and the echo against the rocky cliffs behind us (which the cast had cleverly woven into the script itself) was just spectacular. Here is a little clip of Figaro singing his famous song.

The clouds looked very threatening and at one point it was clearly raining in the head of the valley in front of us, but the big drops magically passed us by!

 Here is a little glimpse at the crowd behind us. We had pretty choice seats, and we had brought actual chairs to sit in rather than blankets on the ground. We were super stoked!

 

Here is a little (poor quality) video of the encore performance of the group aria..

Rhods and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this performance and we even went up to the director at the end to say so. It seemed like not very many people had traveled from abroad to attend this, but we were so glad that we did. In fact, it would have been fun to attend more of the musical events in the festival - maybe next year...

Via ferrata Gustavo Vidi

We headed out today by walking from the hotel about 20 minutes to the gondola station - so civilized!
The ride took another 20 minutes or so, and we emerged at the top, walked ~100 meters and then started the hike.

It was an easy but spectacular route with great views.

 

  On the hike down, I peeled off to go look for fossils in a terrace that is known for its great fossils, and look what i found!

As we were hiking down, we could hear a group of people singing from across the valley. Not sure exactly what was organized here, but it may have been part of the Suono del Dolomiti, which we have to look forward to tomorrow!

 Tonight we went for dinner at Home Stube, which we really enjoyed. It was a beautiful evening as well.

Dolomites, here we come!

Nain and Taid came yesterday to stay and look after the kids while Rhodri and I go to Italy for a long weekend to celebrate our 20 year anniversary. 


We flew from Gatwick to Verona, rented a car, and drove 2.5 hours to the village of Madonna di Campiglio.

We stayed at the Chalet del Sogno, which turns out to be a fabulous place!

We arrived just in time to get settled into our room and get changed for dinner, which we had in the hotel at the downstairs 'Ristorante Due Pini'. Found out later it is a Michelin-star restaurant, which explains the price, portion sizes, and exotic menu combinations. But it was certainly delicious!

Tomorrow we will go on an easy (1-C) via ferrata nearby, Saturday we hope to find the 'Sounds of the Dolomites' opera performance (which was the original motivation for coming on this trip in the first place), and then Sunday do a slightly harder (2-C) via ferrata in the vicinity before heading back on Monday. 

Crawley v Norwich in the FA cup

Cat got us tickets to go see Crawley Town Football Club play against Norwich City as one of the FA Cup games. Norwich is in the Premier League and Crawley is ranked 2 leagues below them so it is rare to see them play against each other. We had a quick dinner of burritos at our house before leaving, but then disaster struck! We got caught in a traffic jam which sat perfectly still for 45 minutes, resulting in our late arrival to the game. Here is the giant lorry that was very stuck in the middle of the roundabout, managing to block so many cars for such a long time.

This was soooooo frustrating, especially when Crawley scored a goal about 20 minutes into the first half! Eventually we made it and had good seats right around the halfway line.

Crawley went on to win 1-0 and it was a great atmosphere, a really fun night! On the way out we actually ran into 2 of my colleagues from work, so it was fun to see some familiar faces in this big crowd.  Here are some highlights... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyYxSGAokbs

Cousin Rachel is off to her next adventure!

It's been really nice having Cousin Rachel living in London for the past year, although we haven't seen quite enough of her.

Now she has announced that she is days away from defending her dissertation for her Masters degree, and that she has landed a job with the World Bank. Clever girl! She came out to stay with us for one final weekend and we made the most of it by going for walks, enjoying some cocktails (and mocktails) and just generally being together.

We look forward to seeing her again in another place, at another time.

Swiss family reunion weekend

This weekend I met up with my Uncle Phil, Aunt Libby, and cousins Wheeler, Ruby and Molly! It was fabulous to spend quality time with this sector of my family.
I flew to Zurich on Friday after work and met up with Wheeler and his friend Tomas.

Tomas gave us a late night walking tour through his adopted city (he is originally from Germany) and telling us some of its fascinating history. Our last stop was the Jules Verne Observatory bar which was really cool to hang out in.

We stayed in Tomas' loft apartment which was such a bachelor pad! Very fun to be free and out in the wide world. We slept a few short hours and then got up at 6 to get to catch the 7:02 train to Sargans where we met the rest of the family.

After a bit of faff, we piled into a large taxi and headed up to Weisstannen to start the hike to Elm. It was a nice day, perfect for hiking

 We stayed in a hotel in Elm and had a great dinner and breakfast there, got a good nights sleep and then on Sunday morning we headed out for a long and fabulous day.

We took the gondola up high and started our hike there. Although we shaved off several hours of slogging up the hill, we still had plenty of challenging hiking to do! We were thrilled to find many bushes of plump, perfect bilberries (European huckleberry equivalent).

 We had spectacular mountains on all sides of us as we headed from Elm to the Leglerhutte mountain hut where we stayed the night.

 

 On Monday morning it was a bit rainy at first, but it brightened up as we started our long descent down to Linthal.

At one point we got separated from each other - Libby, Molly and I got too immersed in picking berries while Phil, Wheeler and Ruby continued on. We took different directions at a fork in the trail but found each other again near the bottom of the trail. 

In fact we popped out at a town that was 1 hr down the valley from Linthal where we wanted to go. In a sudden and spontaneous moment, Wheeler threw down a challenge to race "by whatever means" to Linthal in pairs. He chose Molly, Phil chose Libby, and that left Ruby and I! We decided to hitchhike and only had to wait about 2 minutes before a nice man named Paul picked us up. Fortunately, Ruby speaks German so she could communicate effectively with him. We won the challenge! 

We sure had a laugh about this race, especially the moment when Ruby and I looked out the back window of Paul's car just in time to see Libby thrashing through the bushes on the side of the road.

Eventually the other two pairs joined us and we went out for lunch in a restaurant in Linthal. The manager/ cook was not stoked to see 6 hungry people arrive just before closing time!  Eventually the guy warmed up to us, and the food was very good. 

Then we had to walk very swiftly to train station to catch our onward train at 2:45 pm. We sat together for 45 minutes and some of us played cards (the new fav game called 'Up and Down the River', which we have been playing nearly every night), then the 5 of them got off to catch a different train back to Sargans and I continued to Zurich. I concluded my fabulous weekend by swimming in the lake just ahead of a dramatic storm and then getting a facial treatment at a shop near the train station. My flight was delayed leaving but did eventually leave, and I got home just after midnight. But I absolutely loved this weekend of catching up with 5 of my favorite relatives in such a beautiful and inspirational setting.

Dance Tempo

... aka 'T' ... is the name of the gorgeous horse that Rhiannon is now helping to take care of and ride nearly every day!

 

He is owned by our friend Nicole and stabled in a field which is pretty close to our house. So now Rhiannon can ride her bike or walk through the forest in order to do the horse-related chores. She only rides when someone else is around, though, since her and T are still getting used to each other. So far, so good!

Little Buddy's house

We were all invited to come to dinner at Tryfan's Little Buddy's house this evening. Charlotte and her little sister were a bit wild because they were so excited to have Tryfs and his big sister Rhiannon over to play with. They were pretty cute to watch!

We had a delicious dinner outside using a yoga mat as a table and couch cushions as seats. They are the owners of a really great campsite nearby, and Rhodri and I didn't know the parents very well at all. It was fun to get to know them a little bit better.