Day 2 Italy 2024 Courmayeur and La Salle

 This is our second day and my pictures have come in from the night time ones to the beginning of the morning at the bottom. I never know what this blog is going to do.

                                                                Lois learning Ellie’s new trick

In the afternoon we had to our tour guides family business which is a vineyard and a winery for tasting

I have bought a bottle to bring home..maybe if i still have room in my suitcase!

These have been the vineyards.  The vineyards stay in the families and don’t get sold.  If the family doesn’t want the vineyard then they will offer it to their neighbor to buy.  No outsiders..

As you can tell if you are keeping track that we went to La Salle in the afternoon. 

This property was given to the town and now hosts the town offices. The door below of the building shows wealth with the design over the window.

                                Here i am showing the rocks for the roofs and how thick they are.

                                This is a fountain that is used by all at anytime. Hope you can see it

Beautiful views

                                                    The great race

                                        A tribute to the dogs and the mountain climbers/ guides

Here is the banner that shows all the different races.The big one is 450 which needs to be completed in 150hrs it started on Sunday and the first runner will come in on Wednesday.  The weather for these runners has been grueling . Cold nights -snow- rain. Not fun.  The helicopters are flying over head to rescue some.  There has been 4 deaths on Monte Blanco which wasn’t connected to the race but the helicopters could’ve rescue them because of the weather and they died. When i looked at one point there had been about 150 runners that dropped out.  If i remember correctly there are 1000 runners between all the races.  They go up the mountains and come down only to go back up the next mountain etc.  Not Me!!!

                                                                    The village

Day 1 Italy 2024 september 8

 This is the region we are traveling to this year.

Please remember that though i try to get the facts straight , there maybe places or things i say that are different from what you heard or remember.

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Our usual chaos arrival

                                            Lois,Linda and Jody

                                                    Ellie and Esperia

                                                                Pat, Ruthie, and Joan

 

My view from my window

We arrived here after many hours of flying and the driving 4 hours from Milan 

Pouring rain so the tops of the mountains can’t be seen. There is a famous running race that is going on called the Tor des Greants. 

The Tor des Géants is an annual 330-kilometer (205 mile) footrace held in September in Italy's Aosta Valley. This steep and technical race features more than 24,000 meters (78,000 feet) of elevation gain 

This race has to be completed in 150 hours.

Got to go for dinner

Ciao 

February 2- last day in the Gallapogoes

                    We said good bye to Roberto and meet up with Celso again .  we are now 5.  

                                        

                                        

                                   

 

Febrary 1 -Kicker Jill and Wizard Hill

 We got up early to see Kicker Hill which is a volcano coming up out of the water. The locals say it is a lion. The captain took us around twice as this was a special event.  He had to get permission from the National park to do this. We saw some beautiful Fret birds that puff up the red sack in their throat to a track the female.

We went out on a quick ride on the zodiacs to see Wizard Hill.  This is a volcano that came up out of the sea. As we got closer you could see the rock splitting.as the weather eats away at the stone of ash and salt.  We went through the cave that had been formed by rock falling.

Next we are off to Darwin’s museum .

                            These birds are puffing up their red Brest to attract their mate

We had a lot of these guys visit us before we started out for the day.

                        Watching this island as we came closer. The sun wa beautiful on it.

                                                        Volcanoes rising from the water 

                                                            On to the next island

As we came closer we saw the opening and soon we were going through. The current was really strong!

                                                        Evelyn and Roberto

                Our afternoon stop was to explore this island Cristobal where our welcoming guests were in the way!

                                                                Lazy boy!!

                                                        The sea lions are everywhere!