On our drive to the airport to drop of Jess’ parents we realised that you do in fact need a Vignette on Austrian motorways, previously we’d thought that it was only required for Switzerland. A Vignette is basically road tax that allows you to use the faster arterial roads in the country, similar but much cheaper than the UK tax. As we’d been driving around Austria for about a week, Mark panicked thinking that there could be a big fine coming in the post, so before leaving the Innsbruck airport he dropped by the police station to ask what would be the best thing to do. They directed him to a local newsagent where we could pickup various durations on the Vignette, for which we opted for 10 days. The policeman that helped seemed quite chuffed that we had got away without paying for one so far, and informed Mark that the only time you get fined is when you are caught by the officials that hide in wait on some of the junctions leaving the tolled roads. After a pat on the back and a ‘well done’ from the policeman, we made our way to Zell am See for some lakeside parking for a change of scenery. We arrived at the Seecamp campsite in the late afternoon and setup for the evening. The weather and scenery were great and after sundown we relaxed and got stuck into our next boxset, Downton Abbey, while drinking our replenished stocks of Tetley tea.

The next day was another chilled one and the most exciting thing we did was get some clothes washing done in-between more movies and boxsets. It was the first bedding wash of the trip and we were staggered how the thing didn’t walk to a washing machine itself in plain protest before now!

After settling up the campsite bill, 68 Euro for the two nights, we drove to nearby Kaprun.

We skied the Kaprun-Kitzsteinhorn area on advice of the locals as having the best conditions at the present time. The piste ski area is an average size (41km) and we managed to get around the best of it in a few hours, this said, the off-piste is great fun and it was easy to seek out some untracked powder and couloirs to smash our legs back into condition after the previous lazy days. It’s shocking how a few days of not skiing has an effect on muscle memory and strength! We called it a day by mid afternoon and made our way back to Maggie via the lifts to the carpark.

That evening we drove to a small campsite 14km away from Kitzbuhel and bedded down for the evening.

After a random conversation with the campsite owner on whether we thought that the UK should leave the EU, we got on the road and headed to Kitzbuhel. Despite getting out and organised relatively early, Mark hit one of those ski pass queues where everyone either wants a long chat with the bureau staff, or they want to know every permutation of ski pass depending on numbers and days skied. It took 30 minutes to get to the front of the very short queue after Mark swapped lanes a couple of times, with the original people who were holding it all up still discussing the options with what was now, clearly irritated staff.

It’s sad to say that the piste conditions here were the worst we’ve had so far and we’re not sure why as the area seems really popular and it is geared up to be a bustling resort. The vast majority of the pistes didn’t seem to have been bashed and there was a serious amount of ice and moguls on every run, which was taking its toll on a lot of skiers and boarders trying to enjoy a days skiing. After persevering with the conditions and heading across the resort in hope of finding better conditions we gave up and took the run all the way down to the carpark, which at the lower levels was slushy but surprisingly more enjoyable to ski than the ice fields higher up.The complete reverse of how it should be!

Unfortunately, the maintenance of the pistes transcended into the resort carpark where Maggie was stuck by a series of pot holes hidden by snowfall that hadn’t been cleared from several days previous, but after fitting her snow socks and rocking around we were finally free and back on the road.

The majority of the Austrian ski areas we have visited require access via main cable cars from the valley resort, which is great if you prefer to be in a slightly warmer location and prefer not to do the sometimes dodgy climb up winding mountain roads to get to resort. However, we enjoy being high in the mountain and having the full effect of winter around us. So, craving some resort-level living, we pointed Maggie back in the direction of Italy and made our way to Cortina.

Some serious levels of snow had just starting to come down across the whole of northern Italy, so we were excited to get out and make the most of it. Leaving the snow to do it’s thing, we spent the next couple of days bumming around Cortina, trying to avoid traffic wardens and get away with free parking, and of course more Downton Abbey.

When the clear skies arrived there had been approximately 90cm of snow dumped over the three days previous. Having not skied here before and noting the avalanche risk was level 4, Mark ventured out with full avalanche gear, including ABS to check out the conditions. Jess would join early in the afternoon after a mountain of washing up and some other pink jobs.

Cortina is Italy’s ‘go to’ ski resort when it comes to fashion and being seen, with most visitors lunching in the sun rather than actually skiing. The effect of this is uncrowded skiing and relatively non-existent queues at all the lifts. Perfect for a powder day!

Mark made it up the Faloria cable car and was told that all other lifts on east side of the resort would be closed for 30 minutes due avalanche pockets still needing to be cleared. Watching the helicopter buzz around overhead and drop charges to clear the snow was pretty amazing, especially when the snow lost its grip and came tumbling down over the freshly bashed pistes below.

After a couple of hours of bouncing around Mark made it back down to meet Jess and continue skiing the afternoon. Needing to grab a quick snack, Mark opted for a vending machine stomach turning coffee, and a twix. Jess decided to hold out, a wise choice.

Skiing a circuit is essentially the way the eastern side of Cortina is set up, with a mixture of long/short runs that are all interconnected by the lift network, it feels very similar to the Sella Ronda without the rock in the middle, which coincidentally is accessible from this area for those wishing to go further afield. There are some good powder stashes to be found under the Cristallo side of the mountain, with some tricky and long tree runs that take you good distance away from the piste and terminate in the carpark near Passo tre Croci (we think). We stopped for a late lunch in Rio Gere  to admire the locals and weekend visitors doing the same, although we did look out of place in practical skiing gear within faux fur collars with matching headbands.

We finished the day descending the Faloria cable car and taking in the view, ending with us returning to Maggie to find all our traffic warden dodging and clandestine van movements had not outwitted the local traffic police.

This afternoon Jess made another failed attempt to create a Moonpig card for mothers day, as sods law with these things the mobile broadband was allowing good and steady progress until the time it came to submit and create the masterpiece, at which time Jess’ iPhone became unresponsive and the couple of hours worth of photo selection and uploading had come to a bitter end. Observing the frustrating failure of IT equipment, Mark opted for a one photo option for his Mum which was completed in around five minutes.

Feeling quite tired we didn’t fancy a long drive so we made our way to Arabba, which is part of the Sella Ronda circuit. The entire drive from Cortina is mainly high mountain roads which were starting to ice up from the warm weather during the day, with the now sub-zero outside temperature. Keeping an eye on the outside temperature we didn’t hang around getting to resort as these aren’t the sort of roads that you want to get caught on for an evening if the weather closes in.

We arrived in the nick of time at 18.57, giving us just enough time to run into the local supermarket to pick up some drinking water that we were completely out of, before the store closed at 7pm.

We woke early the next morning and while Mark went skiing for a few hours, Jess continued her determined mission of creating her mothers day card, so headed to one of the local hotels to grab a hot drink and jump on the Wifi. Regretfully giving up with the same technical hitch as the previous days, Jess headed back to Maggie where Mark was waiting. He had returned early due to the large queues of people trying to get around the full Sella Ronda circuit, which was making for dangerously crowded skiing. After a ham sandwich and a cup of Tetley’s finest, we began the long 190km journey to Madonna di Campiglio. After a turbulent drive over the Dolomites, we arrived at our destination and around 9pm, a mere 5 hours after leaving Arabba. Luckily for us we found a decently secluded parking spot outside of town, skipped dinner and crashed for the evening amidst a blizzard outside.

The next days weather continued to be miserable so it was declared a ‘no-ski-day’, which did allow for Jess to concentrate on her favourite task of nailing the mothers day card, which would need to be completed before 4pm to meet the next day delivery deadline. Using the laptop this time and burning tonnes more data, the original template Jess wanted to use had suddenly become unavailable on the website. Not wanting to admit defeat to the machines in charge of this debacle, she regretfully opted for a card with a single photo. Due to the ‘no-ski-day’ status we did manage one accomplishment, to get through our last segment of season 5 and the whole of season 6 of Downton Abbey, leaving only one remaining boxset, the full James Bond collection.

The weatherman got it wrong the following morning, as when we pulled up the blinds it was a perfectly clear day, so we got busy with breakfast and headed straight out. Bit of a mad dash for the public toilets near the skipass office this morning, this was due to the fact we hadn’t been able to empty the onboard toilet as we were saving cash and wild camping for a few days. Jess led this mission with Mark following closely behind.

As we wanted to get over to the Aosta side of Italy next to take advantage of the recent fresh snowfall, we purchased a 4 hour skipass so that we could break up the pending long journey with a stop at Lake Garda, which is in the middle from a driving time perspective, but not distance.

We headed up the mountain for what seemed like ages and disembarked 800 metres of ascent later, opting for the top station rather than the mid-way point. We took a couple of blues all the way down to the bottom (60 & 66), at which point Mark decided to have a ham roll in the Jumper bar as his porridge 90 minutes earlier hadn’t really hit the spot, then to the other side of the mountain! While playing around in the powder at the side of the piste, Jess made a slow motion sideways stack which was quickly followed up with a courtesy snow spray from Mark, almost completely burying Jess in the white stuff.

After a few more runs and realising that our passes wouldn’t get us any further in the lift system we made our may back to our first bubble, where we shared it with the smelliest man in Europe, who, preceded to shut the window as he entered the lift. Mark made the excuse of being too hot and asked it to be opened again, much to his annoyance. Now, given that we’re living in a motorhome traveling the Alps and grabbing showers every few days (with baby wipes in-between) before smells are totally obvious to us, we found it outstanding that we had shared a lift with somebody who had clearly made a conscious effort to ‘out-smell’ his fellow lift companions. This was the skiing equivalent of being trapped with a fart in an elevator! To smell like that through full ski gear really takes commitment.

After several minutes of breathing into the collars of our jackets, this time choosing to disembark at the mid station, we were finally free to gulp fresh mountain air and regain full consciousness before continuing our skiing feeling slightly woozy from the whole ordeal.

Our final runs of the day were spent mainly off-piste, where Jess attempted to make her first ‘gap’ of a boulevard nestled below a natural kicker, which would give enough ‘air’ to clear the jump by a few feet. Unfortunately having a minor confidence lapse, she was leaning too far back and landed painfully too short pulling a shoulder muscle in the process. This time, concerned at this stack (as it wasn’t one to follow-up with a snow-spraying), Mark thrashed around in the deep powder attempting to come to Jess’ rescue shouting “are you hurt”. In the time it took Mark to wade through the snow, the main bulk of the pain had dissipated and Jess was back on her feet, massaging the area of the pain. Not wanting to push our luck, we called it a day and made it back into the town centre to pickup a postcard for the wall of cash.

We arrived at Lake Garda for 6pm and made the most of sundown before heading out for some fodder at a nearby restaurant in Sirmione. The next day would be the remainder of the jaunt over into the Aosta Valley.

 

We pulled into the Arrivals at Innsbruck airport just as Jess’ parents, Reeva and Paul, were walking out of the main terminal. Perfect.

Excited, having not seen the parents for several weeks, there were prolonged hugs all round. We bundled them into the van with the luggage, which mostly consisted of essentials we had run out of i.e more box sets and Tetley tea bags,  and made our way to Mayrhofen.

On arrival into the town we swung by the hotel they were staying at to get them checked in, before parking Maggie in a campsite we had found 1.5km out of town.

On our way to the centre of Mayrhofen,  we stopped to grab a postcard for the wall of cash* in back in the van, at which point Mark spotted some authentic Lederhosen. Needing to fulfil a lifetime ambition of owning a full set, he made a beeline for the shop to get fitted out. After several minutes of laughter at Mark’s Clark Griswold impersonation, he settled on the shorts, checkered shirt and a hat to match. The shop owner threw in a pair of socks as a good will gesture to complete the ensemble. Armed with this new clobber, we will finally be able to host Bavarian night in style back home, complete with an outdoor screening of The Sound of Music and National Lampoons Vacation for friends and family.

Stopping for some goulash soup in Wine & More, we ended the meal with some B52’s to warm us up. Realising after a mouthful of pure alcohol the drink needed to be lit, hence the matches, we encountered several attempts, burnt fingers, and a match dropped directly into the shot, we eventually downed the shots and immediately felt a lot warmer.

With this sudden burst of energy, we decided it would be a good idea to book a late afternoon parapente session to finish the afternoon off, but unfortunately we were too late and in retrospect this may have been a good thing.

After booking our evening meal, we all headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night. Needing to take advantage of the facilities here, Mark made use of the shower which he was greatly in need of, and Jess was grateful for too.

On the way to the restaurant we dropped by Bruckenstadl, a lively apres bar and club close to the centre of town. The usual eurobeat cheese and classic tunes were pumping out to a more than up for it crowd of Austrians, all still clad in full ski gear despite it being well into the evening. Out of the countries we’ve visited, the Austrians definitely top the list for party party, with not a miserable face in sight or a whiff of pending alterations you sometimes see at other lively resorts. After a couple of bouts of running man and a full routine of YMCA, we made our leave and went for our meal.

Wirtshaus zum Griena is an authentic Austrian restaurant 10 minutes walk away from the main centre. It is an old farm outbuilding which could still be in full operation at first glance. Inside is pretty rustic with plenty of cow bells, and other farming paraphernalia, strewn across all the beams and wooden walls surrounding the tables and benches. Meat, meat, meat and sauerkraut is a plenty on the menu, so this may not be the place for vegetarians or those wanting a ‘light’ dinner. The food was superb and perfect to soak up an afternoons worth of boozing and catching up on gossip from ‘back home’.

With heavy stomachs and eyes, we all headed home to our respective beds to get some rest before our upcoming ski day.

Waking early the next morning, we made our way to the hotel to scoff some free breakfast that the parents had managed to blag for us. Although we were still fairly full from the previous evenings meat fest, having a breakfast made for us and sitting down in comfortably spacious surroundings was a real treat!

As we had already been on a family ski holiday together at the start of the year, our aim for today was mainly to spend time together, as opposed to hammering it round the mountain ‘fitting it all in’ before the parents departure the next day. Later in the afternoon and due to the weather closing in, we decided to introduce them to an another authentic Austrian export, schnapps. Reeva seemed to take to it really well, with no issue in going back for seconds and helping Jess with hers, while Paul on the other hand would clearly prefer to have a pint in his hand, as his schnapps face resembled a child being forced to eat their brussel spouts at Christmas.

Needless to say, everyones skiing ability improved in the afternoon.

After a relatively tame family-fun evening of good food and conversation, we waved the parents off at their hotel and Jess and Mark made the 1.5km trek back to Maggie.

Wanting to make the most of our final morning together, we took a detour via the Olympic bobsleigh course just outside of Innsbruck. We were hoping to have a turn for ourselves but unfortunately it was closed as several Olympic teams were training. We spent some time watching these nutcases hurl themselves down the track, which was interluded by the Italian team taking at pretty spectacular crash, which once it looked as if there were no injuries, we didn’t feel so bad about laughing at their misfortune.

After an all too short, great couple of days, we said our goodbyes at the airport and made our way back into the mountains to continue our journey.

*The wall of cash is where we pin all of the spent ski passes, post cards and other tut we collect along the way.

Heading out of Livigno and back into Switzerland Jess had definitely lost her cool and was about to lose it as we’d picked up one too many bottles of spirits on our duty free shop. We passed through the border unstopped, despite Jess looking like a guilty mule smuggling drugs over the Mexican/US border.

On our way to Mayrhofen to meet Jess’ parents we decided to drop into Ischgl, as Mark had been there with the boys the previous year and had enjoyed the skiing and lively Après. Unfortunately camper parking is hard to come by and not well advertised, so we opted for a small parking area we had seen by chance advertised from the main round leading out of Ischgl towards Mathon.

On a previous food shop we’d picked all the ingredients to make a casserole using the slow cooker we decided to bring on the trip. After 90 minutes of Jess’ prep we decided to get the slow cooker going throughout the night and the next day we would warm it through after skiing. Mark found what he thought to be the kettle lead for the slow cooker, which turned out to be for something else entirely, probably a PC or an actual kettle. After a further 60 minutes of trying to retrofit the cable by unscrewing the cooker fixture and shaving the cable with a Stanley blade, we gave up and cooked the meat off for that evenings meal instead. We now effectively own a £100 casserole dish as its the only salvageable part of the entire setup.

The next morning we picked up Mark’s skis which we had put in for a service and adjustment, then dropped Maggie off at a camper park we found on the internet that was a little closer to town. This site is usually a paddock for the rest of the year, but in the winter they allow motorhome parking with an electric hookup for 15 Euro a night.  We were going to catch the bus to the main ski area, but decided to ski down the cross country track and hook a right into town instead. Although Mark was convinced he knew the area well after skiing here the previous year, he managed to get disorientated on several occasions, this disorientation was to continue well into the evening when after skiing we managed several loops of Ischgl trying to find a particular bar and restaurant area Mark wanted to show Jess.

Ischgl seems to go from one extreme to the other, from very fancy high-end hotels and restaurants to what resembles a village social club, with not much in-between. Due to the high prices, we chose the latter option, although a bottle of wine was still 30 Euro minimum. As smoking indoors is allowed in many bars in Austria, we had to make a quick exit form this bar in particular, as we were sat very near a couple of chain smokers, and breathing was becoming a task! We crossed the road into Wine & More for some Riesling, schnapps and antipasti, and were shocked to find out that the food was 20 Euro per person, rather than for the platter.

Waking up in the morning we noticed that we had been unplugged from the electric and took this as our cue to leave. As it was early in the morning we were lucky enough to find a suitable spot for Maggie in the main car park by the lift, before all the other cars arrived for the day. First thing in the morning the queue for the main lift is chaotic with no system for the pile up, taking about 25 minutes, with a capacity of 28 people per lift.  Once we got up the mountain, we realised that our experience of getting on the first lift would set the tone for the rest of day. Due to the amount of people on the slopes around the Idalp area, we mainly stuck to the valley runs for the rest of the day, apart from dropping into Samnaun in the afternoon. On the way back over to Idalp, Jess was stopped after getting off the lift, by what seemed to be your average man in ski gear, asking her to open her backpack. The confused look on her face prompted him to eventually pull out his badge. Unbeknown to her at the time, she had just left a duty free area and he was there to check people weren’t exceeding their limits, and was sporadically checking people with backpacks. Hers however, was full with a bottle of water, a beanie, a shovel, a probe and a transceiver, so she was allowed to carry on and catch up with Mark who was oblivious.

That afternoon we made the 45km journey to St Anton, where a new campsite had opened in Arlberg since our last visit. We had a night of camping luxury with our own private bath house- complete with heating, shower, toilet, sink and separate washing up facilities. This was by far the best shower we’d had all trip. Despite being told the prices on our arrival, when we were ready to leave the following morning, they whacked on an extra 10 Euro for the ‘final clean down’, coming to a whopping 61 Euro for one night’s stay, and another 10 Euro if you want to stay past midday!

Due to the weather conditions and the fact we had both skied St Anton quite extensively previously, we decided against skiing today and chose to head for Germany as it was only a short detour on our way to Innsbruck. Desperate for a Launderette as Mark had run out of clean boxers two days ago, we arrived in Garmisch and made the ‘waschsalon’ our first stop. Whilst we had 3 full washing machines on the go, we wandered up the road to the local shops and bought ourselves our ‘Willkommen’ sign for Maggie and a cowbell! As there is no room in the van to dry our clothes, everything goes in the tumble drier and we have resigned ourselves to that fact that all our clothes will have shrunk/misshapen by the time we go home.

Searching for overnight parking with easy access to the slopes, we came across the ‘Wankbahn’ car park, where several motorhomes had set up for the night, but the lift was closed for maintenance and only had access to walking trails anyway, so we continued our search until we found the cheapest, most popular camping location, Erlebnis Zugspitze. That evening and after Mark had stopped chuckling like a child, we chose to catch the hourly bus into town, as we were a few kilometres out, but as we couldn’t find the bus stop (it was slightly round a bend) the bus went whizzing past and left us standing there staring at it’s lights fading into the distance. Although disappointing as it was about 8pm and we didn’t want to wait another hour for the bus, we stumbled upon the Schmölzer Wirt restaurant that was probably a lot nicer than any we would’ve found in the centre, with the added bonus of avoiding a taxi fare home. Although the meal was delicious and we had a very enjoyable evening all in all, unfortunately for us a young family arrived with two small children who screamed, threw cutlery, bashed plates and cried the whole way through our meal- and they were sat within touching distance. We wouldn’t normally mind if we’d had an earlier sitting, but eating at about 9pm usually means you avoid tantrums from 1 and 3 year olds. Immediately after finishing our last mouthful, we took our wine through to finish in the far more peaceful bar, and tried out the local schnapps.

The weather the next morning was wet and the freezing level was at around 2000 metres, so we decided to do some rambling at the local gorge instead of ski.

We dropped Maggie off at the main carpark and started the 1.5km walk up the winding road to the entrance of the gorge. Not expecting much, we were surprised at the magnitude of the rock height and rushing water in such a unassuming location. We then walked the length of the gorge through winding tunnels and exposed balconies which ended in a vast open area that resembled walking through the Narnia wardrobe. Not satisfied with the 4k trek, we decided to continue and climb up to come over the top of the gorge and make our way back down the opposite side. We climbed for what seemed like an age, with a few people passing us in the opposite direction (no one following our route) so we came to the conclusion that we had in fact stumbled on the 3.5 hour trail back to the gorge entrance, rather than the 30 min option we thought that we were on track for completing. After some bold choices and perseverance through a newly forming blizzard, we made if back to the gorge entrance, and scoffed some goulash soup in the restaurant adjacent.

With one more night to kill before picking up Jess’ parents from Innsbruck, we decided to drop in to Kuhtai to see if we could catch any of The Jump live. The production looked impressive from a little distance, but when you get closer, it all seemed to be a bit of a shambles. We saw first hand how the production staff treated the locals who they had employed for security, and actually felt embarrassed to be British at times. We have however enjoyed the show in the past, so we stuck around until the end. After all, we had filled a flask of hot chocolate to see us through an hour of standing out in the cold and we didn’t want to waste it by going home too soon!

Next stop, Innsbruck, to grab the parents…

After haemorrhaging a bit more cash that we planned in Switzerland over the previous week, we decided to head to Livigno, Italy. We love skiing Italy for many reasons with the added bonus that it is a lot cheaper for everything.

The Wiki bit…

Livigno enjoys a special tax status as a duty-free area. Italian VAT is not paid. Although tax advantages for Livigno were recorded as far back as the sixteenth century, the current tax exemption was first introduced by the Austrian Empire around 1840. It was then confirmed by the Kingdom of Italy around 1910, then by the Italian Republic and the European Economic Community in 1960. Although no VAT is paid, income taxes are, thus Livigno cannot be considered as a tax haven.

The justification for such a status is the difficulty in reaching Livigno during winter, and the centuries-long history of poverty in the region. The various states wanted to ensure people would have an incentive to live in the area (so that they could claim it territorially). At the same time, the tax revenue from Livigno would have been negligible.

We finalised our pink and blue jobs before attempting to leave the campsite at Rinerhorn. Maggie had frozen to the ground due to the on/off freeze/thaw weather we had experienced while we were here. It took several attempts and different ideas for around 45 minutes to free Magster from the camping ground’s ice grip on her tyres. Had she made friends while we were night skiing and didn’t want to leave? There were some good looking  eligible motorhomes suspiciously close to our location, and she seemed very reluctant to leave.

Anyway, the winning combo to get us out of this pickle was snow socks, snow chains, a shovel and plenty of grit provided by a nice German couple who had arrived that morning and park next to us.

The journey to Livigno from Davos is around 75km and in involved a car train and a toll tunnel. While on the car train we decided to take luncheon, this was quite unsuccessful and rushed as we didn’t know how long the passage would take. (we’re enjoying the Downton Abbey box set as we pen this blog, hmm quite).

As the train gathered speed we could hear crashes of ice being blown off the roof, each crash behind us was met with us both pulling a silly face and looking at each other, you know, the one you pull when something bad happens that you can’t control, like dropping a bowl.

 

We alighted the other end and immediately noticed a the car that was parked behind us on the train flashing its headlights and signally us to pull over. Expecting the worst, we reluctantly pulled over thinking we would to be confronted with an irate car owner, we were surprised to see a friendly old couple who made no issue of the ice smashing into their newly purchased car, they just wanted to see if there was any damage with us present, and blamed the weather conditions for the ice and that we couldn’t be expected to clear it from the roof before driving.

After confirming there was no damage to their car we drove on, with the couple still driving behind us. A few kilometres down the road we made a left turn and the couple beeped their horn and waved us on our way as they continued straight.

On arriving at the Livigno customs control there was a green light to enter the tunnel, but unsure of the system, Mark decided to pull over and check with the custom officials. We were told to just drive on, by which time the light had turned red.

After 15 minutes waiting it was green to go, with the queue stacked up behind us, Maggie’s wheels refused to take sufficient grip to get us up the ice gradient and into the tunnel. With hazard lights engaged, the long queue of traffic behind us piled into the tunnel. With the traffic behind us clear, we rolled Maggie backwards down the hill with all custom officials watching, and took an ambitious ‘run-up’. Some high revs and sideways slipping later, the tyres took grip on the snow free tarmac and we juddered into the tunnel.

We arrived at the campsite at 4pm and Jess wrote in her diary while Mark faffed with the Wifi, followed by the skis in the garage – he does love a faff!

Later that evening we walked into town for a few drinks and dinner at a small pizzeria at the edge of town. On the way home Mark decided to play a game of ‘snow dunk’ which involves pushing the opponent continuously into the snow each time they regain balance. When we arrived back at Maggie the door keys that were missing and we had to retrace our steps to find them. Luckily they were found at a snow dunk location Jess had imprinted on the way home!

The next morning the skies were clear so while Mark left for first lifts, Jess hung back and got stuck into finishing the end of ‘Little Girl Gone’, a book she had been reading before picking up and consequently getting hooked on ‘Into Thin Air’ (Mark’s book). On the hill it was empty and it felt almost criminal carving up the obsessively pisted runs across the north facing mountains. Mark went on to make lunch friends with a flock of birds that managed to con a bowl of croutons that were destined for his soup as he sat there feeding them like a scene out of Mary Poppins. Mark returned back to Maggie early afternoon and we decided, due to the reduced cost in the area, to take the backcountry skis into town to have the bindings moved. After a hike around the town we were unable to find a ski shop that were able to perform this due to the width of the skis.

That night we pushed the boat out and dined in a locally recommended restaurant, Paprika. An amazing three course meal with champagne and a few after-dinner Disaronnos came to 150 Euro, result! We made our way home and while en route a second round of ‘snow dunk’ was called, but this time all keys were stowed before the game commenced.

When we arrived home we continued the competition with a game of frustration, with the loser having to perform a forfeit. Mark lost and was charged with performing a lap of Maggie barefoot in his pants. On Mark’s bundled return through the door, he trapped his thumb resulting in a nasty (almost to the bone, in his words) cut. It was obviously cold outside too! We took this as a sign to go to bed and sleep it off.

Hungover. We managed to crawl down the ladder by late morning to make a revolting brunch of ‘Porc Cassoulet’ and bread, not sure what we were thinking, but we just about stomached the bread. We ended up climbing back up the ladder into bed to finish watching Antman which we had started a few days prior. Mark had a little ‘Nana Nap’ before we decided it would be best to get some fresh air and take a walk into town for some supplies from the local shop. After filling both our backpacks with carbs and comforting snacks, our hangovers had worsened and we decided the best cure would be to grab a takeaway pizza to eat in the comfort of Maggie. Actually, we picked up one pizza each and a calzone to share for a starter! Needless to say, we didn’t finish it all and most of the pizzas ended up at the bottom of the fridge. At the end of our incredibly lazy day we somehow managed to stream The Lovely Bones on the campsite wifi before we both drifted off into unsurprisingly disturbed sleeps.

We skied the afternoon the next day after grabbing a quick sushi lunch in town. The Livigno skiing area is spit into two parts which now includes dedicated freeride off-piste, which was previously banned for several years. Both sides of the valley now have great balance and spit of long wide pistes vs off-piste terrain which we explored, making our way through the trees and back to the doorstep of the campsite.

After four nights at Camping Permont (80 Euro, including electric and all the facilities) we decided to move back to Austria in the run-up to meeting Jess’ parents in Mayhofen, but not before stocking up on duty free booze and thrashing around on rental skidoos…

#skiclubphotos #ski #powder #powpow #pow #freeride #skilife #frozenontheinside #motorhomeski