National hoolidays are few and far apart in Italy. If they fall on a weekend you use them. So, in the words of the great Dumb and Dumber "Use it or lose it sister!". This Friday we decided to go snowboarding. There has not been great this year, but there has been a bit. Just about enough. Through the week we were avidly following the webcams of the local snow spots. We have two - on is Mont Amiata - this is about an hour to the south of Siena and I have never been snowbaording there. The snow can be ok, but it is a little south and a little too near the coast to ever get great snow. About 2 hours north there is Abetone. This is a full on snow resort and from late January has about 2.5 months of great snow. But it is not really ready yet.
However, we thought that Val di Luce might be a bit better, this is about 20 minutes drive further on from Abetone, and it turned out to be perfect.
http://www.valdiluce.com/
It hasn't snowed there since before Xmas we think, and on top of the mountain it was brutal, very windy, icy and quite a few rocks, but down on the beginners slopes where I was hanging out it was absolutely great. For Xmas Dawn had purchased for me new pants, jacket, gloves and helmet to replace the rubbish I had picked up from Decathlon and it was an absolute pleasure. Took me most of the day to get into it, but at the end of the day I was starting to feel quite confident and am hoping this will set me up for the rest of the season.
Back to the reason for the holiday - La Befana means the witch and she comes every year on what the rest of us think of as Epiphany to give presents to the lucky Italian boys and girls. In a kind of Santa Claus vibe. Bless her - she's as ugly as fook, and don't you dare wish an Italian woman "buona Befana" as this is not polite as I found out! However, it's a day off which makes me very happy. Even if I did have to interview someone at 06:30am and have a two TC on the mountain, ah well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Happy snowboarding season kids.
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