This morning we woke up a bit earlier than usual to hit the gym. After running for a half hour we headed up for breakfast before hitting the town.
We set out on a walk with no particular destination in mind. We started by crossing the Academia bridge and journeyed around until we crossed the Rialto. The Academia bridge is currently being restored. Our trip took us through the neighborhoods of Dosoduro and Santa Croce.
After walking for about three to four hours we stumbled in to a wine bar, Vino Vero, we found on our last trip. It was one of the highlights of our last trip so we were excited to find it again. They have tons of bruschettas. They also advertise that they don’t have spritz because they love wine. Their selection is quite good both by the glass and bottle which they sell to take away as well. It’s along the Fondamenta Misericordia in Canneregio.
After we finished at Vino Vero we started to make our way leisurely back towards the hotel. We stopped at another bar on the way for more snacks. It’s like tapas in Barcelona where you can eat a little bite and then move on and eat a little more. All delicious bites on toast and a reason to stop for a little while on the walk. In the second bar we met a law student from Israel who lives in Bologna but comes to Venice to buy his supplies for Passover. The ghetto in Venice is still one of the largest Jewish communities in Italy. Nice guy, bought us each a little shooter of wine they drink here called an ‘Ombra.’ (Note: top photo is from google just to show what the ‘Ombra’ looks like)
Our day of laying low had us walking over 20,000 steps. We enjoyed many bars and was able to escape most of the rain. Also tonight we are expecting 1.2 meters of Aqua Alta around 11:30PM so the walkways are up. As we passed through San Marco the water was already bubbling up through the storm grates across the piazza. Gladly we will be back safely at our hotel before the alarm rings. (Anything over 110cm of high tide the alarm rings all over Venice to let people know it’s coming so they can get to where they need to be.) The walkways cover heavily trafficked routes in the the areas that are most prone to flooding.
Tomorrow is our last full day of the Sabbatical and we are understandably sad to see it end. Tomorrow we will try to get emotional and “shmoopy” about the trip unless we get too busy. If that happens you all will have to wait.
The ruins reminded us of Pompeii; however, some were in much better shape including the temples. It was mind blowing to be standing in a temple that was built nearly 2,500 years ago. Throughout the town there are a ton of stray dogs. Some were quite cute. Of course, we kept our distance even though they appeared friendly. 
After walking through the town, we made it to the church and queued up our Rick Steve’s guided tour audio and set about the church.
Jeff, Sara, and Dave woke up and were all nervously excited about our day ahead. We got dressed and under Dave’s direction showed up to our first lift 30 minutes early. We took the funicular up followed by two chairs. Once we got to the top, we had a short hike to reach the area where the helicopter picks us up. We met our guide Loris and he took all of our skis and tied them in to a bundle. As the helicopter arrived our skis were placed in the rack and we all jumped aboard. Within seconds, the helicopter was off. As we pulled away, the force of acceleration and turning was quite intense and we all looked at each other in excitement. The video yesterday doesn’t really do justice to how amazing the view was, weaving in and out of the peaks just below 14K feet. Once we got to the top, we quickly unloaded and dropped to the ground to allow for the helicopter to take off. The whole process was quite organized with the helicopter only on the ground for pickup/drop off for no longer than 15 seconds. The ride was so short we thought there might have been a mix up and that we weren’t actually going to drop down into Zermatt but we were actually in the right place, high up along a ridge line separating Italy and Switzerland.
This goes to the highest point of the Monterosa Ski Resort that is lift accessible. At the top of the Gondola, we put our climbing harnesses which we thought was for skiing on the glacier. We were wrong… We skied across the traverse, and hit the first of many side stepping portions which were quite exhausting. Once we got to the top, we arrived at our first open bowl area which had some relatively nice powder. We skied down a bit and hit another traverse. After side stepping to the top of the second traverse here, we realized what the harnesses were for.
There was a very steep very tight chute that we were going to rappel down in our skis.
The way this works is you ski down and clip on to the rope. Then skiing backwards the guide slowly lowered us down in to the chute. It was one of the gnarliest things I have ever done. The photo below does not give any justice to how steep this was.
Once we got down to the bottom of the chute we got to a wide open bowl of untracked powder.
This part was a hiking trail along a pretty stream and waterfall that had frozen over. After the hiking trail we joined up with a road that took us to a very small hamlet that had a parking lot and a pommel horse. We took the pommel up and then skied down the valley through backyards, across foot bridges and at least one little park. Once we arrive in Alagna, it was 2pm. We left the house at 8am and we basically did one run. With our legs shot, we needed to hurry back up the mountain to not get trapped in Alagna. It is a 6 hour drive from Alagna to Champoluc so rather than break for lunch we grabbed the gondola out of town. Once we got to the top of the Bettaforca, we finally stopped for lunch at 3pm. It was a such an amazing time. Here’s our wrap photo.