Day 10

Our hotel in Aosta didn't have internet so I have been out of touch with the world for the past few days.  For those of you who are wondering, we are fine. The earthquake was a four hour drive away.  These are photos and thoughts from Day 10.... I'm going to try to catch up.

The drive to Aosta was beautiful with castles and churches with the the Alps as a back drop.

Upon arival Tara, Laura and I went out to walk around the town,  We had three hours before we met up with our local Rotarian host. They say you know tourists in NYC because they walk looking up.  I’m sure we must have looked the same.  The moutains peeking up behind the buildings were amazing.

looking out my window

Chocolate made by the students

I did another vocational visit to a School of Tourism. Again the program taught hotel hospitality, the culinary arts and food service. While there I thought it would be neat if some of the kids did an exchange in the USA for the summer. Live with a local family and work at a place like the Mimslyn or on the drive. The students are fluent in a minimum of 4 languages and have been trained very well.

An 11th Century Castle, just chillin behind the school.

Roman City Wall

The area hosts the highest peaks in the Alps, we were able to see peaks from Italy, Switzerland and France. Our first stop was a Vineyard that is at the highest elevation in Europe.

Next we stopped at a cheese cave, the Aosta region is a first producer of Fontinia.

The smell was so pungent that I nearly threw up and it made me sick for the remainder of the day,  there were 5 "halls" like this and apparently 6 other caves where the cheese is stored.

Lastly we went to Mount Bianco (Italian spelling I think Blanc in English) the highest peak in Italy. The top is 4807 meters, not sure how that translates in English maybe, around 15,000 feet. We drove to some vistas, only at 1800 meters (5,000+ feet) and then stopped at a cafe for some coffee.