Hello Everyone,

We got back last week from our trip to the mainland.

We flew into Slovenia and headed northward to the small town of Bled. We had a great pension, found it and headed for dinner. Fantastic Italian influenced food!! (Cheesy, bacon gnocci and a fantastic tuna steak) …and cheap beer and wine.

After a casual breakfast at the pension we made our way to the town where we could access Triglav National Park and the high trails. A long bus wait (which we filled with coffee/fruit/pint stop) later and short bus journey, we were ready to hit the trail for what we thought would be about a 3 hour hike into a hut.

Our welcoming party at the pension.

Bled Castle

At the trailhead, the heavens opened up and we slogged on in a crazy thunder and lightning storm. We continued to hike and hike and (again) I found out that we had missed a junction. A lot of slagging from Kelly ensued. We were fine to continue on our trail to get to the hut but encountered thigh deep snow on the trail! Boooo. So. Soaking wet and facing a few more hours (or more) slogging through the snow we decided to about face and head back to town with thoughts of dry clothes and warm food in our minds.

With a nice hotel found and snow at higher elevations we decided to look around for some action. And action we found!!!

Looking at train routes we discovered that we could stop in Venice for a couple days on our way across to Milan.

Venice was going great… until the most embarrassing dinning experience ever.

Kelly and I found a quaint canal lined with really nice restaurants to sit down for a glass of wine and some fantastic Italian cuisine. We managed to get a table on a fairly busy patio that seemed popular with the local Venetians. The place was quite trendy with and as it appeared to attract the young socialites of Venice. Things were going fine and dandy, chatting with our dinning neighbours when I heard a “bump, bump, bump, sploosh” and Kelly’s face going white. I thought to myself “please be her cell phone” but nope it was our little camera. As the place was busy it made for a huge scene with people pointing, looking, and describing what happened to their friends (hand motions and sound effects transcend language barriers). Since we were both shaken and bummed out (both for the camera and the memory card) it essentially killed our conversation with our neighbours. After about 20 minutes of trying to cheer each other up, Kelly looked over her shoulder and spotted it in the canal! It was about 4 feet deep, as it had landed just on the edge of last step.
Trying to figure out a way to retrieve it without going waist deep in the Venice canal with a patio full of onlookers, I ran down the canal, hopped onto a vacant boat, stole and oar and tried to get the camera up to a manageable level to wade in. (While this is happening our food comes which we will address shortly). Within a couple steps from the top, one of the helping locals, took off his sandals and waded down to grab it, to a great cheer from the building crowd.

With our soggy camera back we could get down to the business of our wine and food. But when I sat back down, placed in front of me was a heaping plate of bright red, raw beef pilled on top of a few leaves of rocket. “Oh, yeah! That’s what Carpaccio is…shit.” What was I going to do with this giant plate of cow? (first thought was another accidental drop into the canal) Kelly slyly suggested putting it into my napkin. Even though she was probably kidding and I didn’t pick up on it, I waited for what seemed like an opportune time and, in a flash, filled my napkin with whatever I could shovel off my plate in an instant. Cool as a cucumber, man of the world, haute dinning professional, I felt like I had gotten away with it.

But….

A few minutes later (a new, larger group was now beside us) a woman leaned over and asked for the benefit of her group how our food was. She said it with a glimmer in her eye and had directed the question right at me. Both of us burst out laughing, as we both knew she had busted me and my feeble attempt at subtlety. She proceeded to tell the rest of her table what I’d done and their astonishment and laughter ensued. They at least made me feel a little bit better when they told me to pass the remaining Carpaccio over, and they gladly finished it off.

We paid the bill and ran. Fast.

Purse sellers heading for a midnight meeting.

Boat bottoms

Got to Milan on Wednesday night with lots of time for Kelly to prepare for her seminar on Thursday. The neighborhood around our hotel had 2 great trattorias so we had nice options dinning near the hotel.

While Kelly was at her seminar on Thursday I took the train up to Lecco, a town near the Swiss border in the Italian Lake District. The weather was hot (30+) and it made for a really sweaty trail run/scramble but nice to feel some real heat. Plus a dip in the Lake Como makes the train ride back to Milan a little more bearable (for both myself and the other passengers).

Friday was a day off for Kelly before her conference really kicked off on Saturday so we decided to head north to Switzerland for a day of hiking. Two of my former students, Rolfe and Andre, had made arrangements to come down from (near) Zurich to meet us. As one of their colleagues was from the southern part, they had a great day of hiking planned for us. We took a gondola up to the alpine on Monte Tamaro and had about at 17km alpine ridgewalk to Monte Lema. The hiking was spectacular with views down over the Swiss and Italian Lakes and west toward the Vallais region including the Matterhorn.

Milano!

Back in Milan for the weekend, I was left to my own devices while Kelly presented at the conference on Saturday (which was a great success even though the conference was much larger than she had anticipated) and attended talks on Sunday. I’d spend my mornings running and taking photos and usually find a quiet spot in Milan’s main park to listen to music, read my book and relax. There was a community festival in the park so there was live music, demonstrations, and food vendors plus lots of space to spread out and enjoy the sunshine.

As another dinner option we found a great neighborhood in south Milan near their canals. There were tons of restaurant options and the food was unbelievable. We even managed to avoid dropping anything in the canals and enjoy some fantastic dinners.

The Lake District, England

Kelly’s superior performance in her high altitude medicine elective last year earned her a scholarship to attend a wilderness medicine course in England. She was supposed to go last fall but her botched ankle postponed it to this spring.

She flew from Galway to Manchester early on Sunday morning and spent the day exploring all of the English transportation systems to reach her final destination of Keswick (Kez-ick) in the evening. She spent the week up and down the mountains doing various doctor-in-the-wild-type-stuff. Clearly I lack the vocabulary and the insight to give her experience justice. I’m sure she’ll write about it.

Because I thought she might get lonely over in the UK without her lifemate, I had made arrangements to fly over and join her on the Thursday after her course finished. This would give us four days to hike, camp and explore more of the Lake District. I got in on Thursday morning, rented a car, and started north. I found Kelly at their hostel and could immediately tell that she had had a fantastic week. She had a huge grin on her face, a coffee in her hand, and she was talking a mile a minute faster than usual about her week. Once I was up to speed, we headed into town for groceries so we could hit the trails before it got dark.

After a quick check of the map we made our way to the trailhead about 30min south of Keswick down some beautiful rural roads. Tiny stone communities line the narrow, windy roads around the Lake District so driving (and navigation) is interesting. We loaded our bags and headed off into the drizzling rain and a growing darkness. We walked a few kilometers and quickly realized that finding flat, unsaturated ground for our tent would be near impossible so backtracked to the only semi-flat, semi-clear spot we could find for our tent.

In the morning after a night spend in gale force winds rain, we had some breakfast, packed up, and headed up the valley toward Scafell Peak. The valley was beautiful with a wide river snaking though the green fields, enclosed by rocky ridges on either side.


After clearly walking further than our map showed (and Kelly talking to every sheep we passed) in a valley that was clearly longer than we needed a timeout to consult the Oracle about our location.

Oh-oh...

Okay, okay, I’ll bet even Magellan was wrong about his location once in his life. I’ll bet he never had to hear about from his wife for the rest of eternity. The difference between Magellan and I; my wife has a longer memory. Turns out we had parked at the wrong trailhead and were a valley over from where we wanted to be; a common expert navigational error.

With the weather growing sour we decided against a snowy high col to reach our “other” valley (and abandoning a rental car miles away) and made our way back out toward the car to trade valleys. This worked out okay as we found a level, dry campsite in a farmers field where we could spend the night.

See? Not such a bad valley to explore.

Early the next morning we started out up the valley toward the center of the Lake District, Scafell Peak. While a little windy at times (and a few short-lasting hail squalls) the weather was mostly beautiful and sunny. The trail network was so good that it was easy to modify plans to incorporate additional lakes and peaks as we wanted. We found a nice grassy spot for lunch under Scafell that overlooked the lakes and valleys below. We got great views of Scafell, Isle of Man, and even to Scotland from Great Gable across the way.

Looking down our uptrack.

Green Gable behind Kelly.

Scafell Pass

Summit of Green Gable

Across to Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England.

Walking to our car through the farm/trailhead.

Kelly likes lamb.

Our last night was clear and cold (-8 C) and had an unexpected interruption (driving a freezing teenage girl to the nearest hostel where her teachers were staying). The day we were leaving (as always) was sunny, clear and very warm.

Derwent Water

Keswick, enjoying the sunshine.