Bardonecchia, Italy

Bardonecchia was not on our "must go here" list in Italy. It was a matter of circumstance, however, as we'd heard it was a very beautiful area in the mountains and we could go quickly and inexpensively. As an added bonus, the tourism website for Bardonecchia showed snow-tubing at the ski resort as an activity. Sign us up.

Neither of us really knew what to expect from this small town, but we knew it had hosted a few Olympic events in the 2006 Torino games (photographic proof at bottom). Our hotel was inexpensive and overlooked a small parking lot which turned out to host a market during our snowy stay. This was perfect, because I needed boots and got them for cheap...after I wore them walking around the wet, snowy pavement, effectively buying them without realizing it because you're not supposed to wear shoes outside when you're testing them.

The "city" has a bus system that stops in 2-3 places in the town and then goes to the bases of the main ski lifts - which are on opposite sides of the town. See, Bardonecchia is just nestled into the mountains. It's really cool. 

We went up the side called Jafferau and rented show-shoes to go hiking. The people thought we were crazy because we'd heard the Italian word for them, tried to say it several times, and apparently failed miserably. They rented us the show-shoes anyway.

After a couple of hours we wandered the very cute town and ate at a place called Taverna del Dahu. It was terrific. We split a salad and a pizza before ordering a 2nd pizza to really make ourselves feel full to the point of sickness, although we couldn't quite finish the 2nd one. Midway through our meal we noticed that one of the people at a neighboring table had a dog sharing the table with them. Never a peep. 

Also, there was an older couple at the table directly next to ours, probably in their late-60s. They each ordered an enormous salad and we were impressed that they ate the whole things. Then two pizzas arrived. They ate those whole things too. I've never been so impressed - these two old folks confidently put down probably 2,000 calories apiece. Relationship goals.

Anyway, On the way back to our hotel we saw a Chinese lantern festival taking shape for someone's birthday and watched as dozens of people floated their paper-lights into the sky. How quaint. 

Most of the town is seasonal housing, but the main drag (Via Medail) is where the restaurants and shops are, which is pleasant to walk along. There is a river that cuts through the town and draws the eye as only a river can do.

The next day we took the shuttle-bus over to the Campo Smith ski area to have a go at tubing. 

Let me tell you...it was heart-breaking. The "tubing" area was about 100 feet long and looked like it might be steep enough for a ball to roll downhill, but maybe not. There were 0 people using it. We were sure we were looking at the wrong thing so we explored the area and...nope. That was it. That was the whole thing. Devastating.

With tears in our eyes we continued to the southwest corner of the area, near Pian del Colle, and did some cross-country skiing. This was my first attempt, and after real skiing went...poorly, I was nervous.

Turns out it's really fun and kind of easy to not hurt yourself.

Strongly recommended.

The last cool thing we did was hike along a road continuing west. As we followed the road up the mountain we noticed that a sign was in French. We walked across the Franco-Italian border! Upon further review, we also did this on the border:

Lastly we had the good fortune of a classic Italian rail strike - a sciopero - on our trip home. The train was supposed to leave Bardonecchia in the afternoon and we arrived at the train station to discover that it was canceled. Through some awkward interactions we learned that there would be one bus going to Torino at around 6:00 and we'd be well-served to get on that bus for a few euros if we had any desire to get home that night.

We were the 3rd and 2nd to last people to get on the bus. People were jockeying for position to get on, and we felt like we were above that, so we didn't force ourselves in. Luckily it worked out and we headed back to Torino for two hours.

Our train back to Milan from Torino was literally the first train after the sciopero was lifted. Much to our shock, there were actually empty seats on the train, too. 

Photos!