(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

In my last post, I said that I would dig up some photos from a 2013 ski trip to the village of Selva (in the famous Val Gardena of northern Italy) and write a “Travel Flashback” post on it.  I found the photos, but have decided against a traditional “Travel Flashback” post.

I have to admit that I did write a flashback post about Val Gardena.  Alas, I wasn’t very happy with the post.  It has now been 4 years since visiting Val Gardena and there have been other ski trips to northern Italy in the interim.  Ski trips are the ultimate in “experiential travel”:  you’re not just observing, you’re interacting with the dramatic mountains.  However, it’s hard to effectively convey that interaction in writing many years later, especially without any significant notes.   It also would have been much different if I had not been skiing in Italy since then, as there would not have been any conflicting memories from 2014 and 2016.

Importantly, this was also one of my last trips before deciding to launch this blog.  Over time, I have developed strategies for blog entries that don’t require me to spend precious vacation hours in front of a computer.  I can now create the framework for a blog post in a few minutes, if necessary, and fill in the details later.  Back in 2013, however, I didn’t have those strategies.

The only real travel revelation during that trip?  This was the first time I had stayed for an entire week in a “half-board” (breakfast and dinner included in the cost of the room)  arrangement and I was worried that the food would become tiresome after a couple of days.   Not at all!  The food was great at the Hotel Europa and we enjoyed getting to know the restaurant staff during the course of the week.

And what about the skiing?  While not as challenging as the larger ski areas in Switzerland, I remember this much:  there was an epic dump of snow on the third day that left us with outstanding conditions for the rest of the week.  I don’t have any good photographs from that day but there is a brief video from that morning (you can link to it directly here).  The powder was even deeper in the afternoon and it was difficult to leave the slopes at the end of the day.

Despite not being able to create a satisfying “travel flashback” post about it, I still look back very fondly on Val Gardena.   There’s something to be said for living in the moment and not spending too much of your trip thinking about blog entries.

If you want to know more about skiing in the Val Gardena region, you can start by checking out the posts from my 2014 trip to nearby Cortina d’Ampezzo (here, here and here).

Returning to the present:  our trip to Madonna di Campiglio is rapidly approaching.  The next blog entry may well be from Italy!