Piancavallo, a winter wonderland

After working through the holidays (ok, an exaggeration. I may not have actually "worked" on holidays...but I didn't take any vacation!), we decided we were overdue for a vacation. Landing on a spectacular deal, we scored a one bedroom apartment for a grand total of $150 (that's no mistake folks, dollars) for four night at the foothills of the Dolomites. Taking advantage of a couple Italian holidays in the beginning of January, we packed up the car and set off for the mountains!


Instead of skiing on our first day, we headed up from our apartment to the resort area, dog in tow. Piancavallo is situation in a plateau amidst the Eastern Alps in the province of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Straddling the border between Italy and Slovenia, the resort is firmly on the Italian side. While not a huge resort, there's a respectable 12 chairlifts and several different runs (24 kilometers worth) from most of the lifts.


Down at our "base camp" we were snow-free. However, as we drove up the mountain, we quickly realized that we were entering a winter wonderland. Cooper was ecstatic to see the snow! Given his previous reaction (shaking it off, running back indoors), we figured that our walk around town would be short-lived. To our surprise, his water-loving instincts took over despite the frozen nature of said water. Our boy even managed to dig out a stick in the snow.


Coop and Mark rough-housed in the snow for awhile. With the sun starting to slip behind the mountains in the background, they ran over several feet of packed snow managed to soak themselves thoroughly.


The next day, we set out sans-dog with our snowboarding and skiing equipment. We were both a bit nervous. In my case, I haven't skied since my senior year of college when I managed to fracture my elbow on the slopes. This was my first time 'getting back on the horse'. For Mark, he'd never skied before and his only snowboarding experience came in the form on a two-hour lesson at the indoor ski slope at Dubai's Mall of the Emirates. Luckily, it didn't take too long for us to get off the bunny slopes and by the end of the day, we were taking a chance (in my case, just one) with the red slopes!