We are not a ski family. Mandi and I didn’t grow up skiing, and for a variety of reasons skiing just not something we’ve been interested in.
However, after having such a great time in the Dolomites at Christmas and realising that the kids had a week off school for ‘ski week’ we decided that part of our European experience should be spending a week skiing.
We’d also met another Australian family at Christmas who was going to be skiing at the same time and they invited us to tag along with them, which made it all much easier to figure out (thanks Emily and Duncan!)
We hit the road on Saturday morning and got three hours North before needing fuel and food. We stopped at an enormous Autogrill with a parking lot full of SUVs festooned with ski gear. Half the population of Northern Italy seemed to be doing the same thing we were.
We had a quick break and got back on the road. Pretty soon we were passing through the stunning outskirts of the Dolomites.
And then we got our first glimpse of snow.
We arrived at the apartment and found out what ‘directly on the ski slopes’ means.
We unpacked and headed into town to organiser our gear, tickets and lessons. We had a quick dinner, headed back to the apartment and watched them groom the slopes for the next day.
We woke up to the sun rising over Kronplatz.
After breakfast we headed downstairs to get the kids geared up for ski school.
We weren’t confident to ski down from our apartment so we had to drive down the mountain to deliver the kids to their teacher.
The kids went off and Mandi and I headed to a bar to relax before our private lesson later that afternoon. We all had a great day and were exhausted by the time it was time to go home. We bought groceries for dinner and headed back to the apartment to sit on the balcony and watch the sun set and the shooting stars come out.
The next morning we discovered Audrey already awake at 5am with excitement.
Over the next couple of days we thoroughly embraced the ‘après-ski’ lifestyle, with regular Aperol Spritzes and apple strudels.
And enjoyed the spectacular scenery of San Vigilio.
By the middle of the week were all getting much more confident with our skiing and getting into a routine on the slopes.
On Thursday we headed up to the summit Kronplatz to have lunch and enjoy the view.
Unfortunately we were a bit ambitious in everyone’s ability to ski down the mountain and back to our apartment. After getting stuck half-way down we managed to climb back up to the summit and catch a gondola all the way down. Unfortunately this left us in another town on the other side of the mountain, 20km from where we were staying. Fortunately we managed to find a shuttle to get us back safely.
After a few drinks we were fine.
The last day Hayley (who was the only one of the kids that stayed in ski school the whole week) had her final race - competing against all the other kids. She came third!
On Saturday we got up early, packed the car and headed home. We stopped in Padua on the way back and stumbled onto an enormous market.
After lunch and incredible gelato we got back in the car for the final stretch.
We finally arrived back home to the first signs of spring.
