Visit Marius, Paola & Charlie

On arrvial in Rovereto we were nicely welcomed with the local 'Champagne' called Ferrari by Richard & Kelsey and Marius, Paola and a sleeping Charlie. It was great that our stay overlapped one day with Richard and Kelsey's and were able to spend our first night together.

Last day Richard and Kelsey and a nice walk

On the train station in Rovereto Kelsey made a group picture just before they headed off to Munich...

After that we went for a nice walk in the mountains of Rovereto where Paola appeared to be a 'bikkel' in the truest sense of the word. That is to be more man than either Marius, me, Charlie or Karen by walking for about 1,5 hour up and down mountains carrying Charlie in her backpack.

An impression of the view during our walk

Lago di Garda & New Years Eve

The next day we went to the Lago di Garda where we planned to visit a very nice little romantic town, called Limone sul Garda, for lunch. Unfortunately, since we visited out of tourist season, all the restaurants were closed. So after walking through the village we moved to Riva del Garda instead and enjoyed our lunch, Italian pizza, there.

Karen and Paola enjoying a hug in the sun

Luckily there was a Christmas market in Limone...

Foods for good fortune... Lentils, since they represent coins and swell as they cook, are eaten in Italy at New Years Eve. Since we thought it was a good prospect for 2011 we decided to go along with this tradition. The lentils were accompanied with a great Italian sausage called Cotechino (correct me if I'm wrong), which contained enough fat to get us through the first month of 2011! Hopefully the promises of this meal are going to work out so we can properly weigh the lentils on a newly bought weighing scale next year instead of using this old school method with two wine glasses.

To accompany the lentils and sausage we had this nice magmum of local wine.

Which Karen seemed to like it a lot!

New Years day

On January 1st Karen and I went for a nice walk to lose some of the calories we gained eating the sausage we had the night before.

Here we saw the house we will buy if the lentils are in our favour and 2011 treats us nicely.

I'll eat some more sausage next year to go with a bit more lentils so we can also buy this vineyard situated right next to it in 2012.

Trento

Our visit to Trento where we enjoyed a nice lunch and walked around.

Marius couldn't resist getting some ice cream in this apparently world famous place, which I've been told also pleased Martijn and Jorien a lot!

At night Charlie chose the wines to accompany our dinner...

Skiing

Since we were so close to the mountains and snow, we also went skiing one day which was great fun.

Actionshot of the photographer following Paola in action

Euro 95, Diesel or Wine...

One of the great things about this part of the world is that you can buy wine here the way you would if you fill the tank of your car!

Charlie knows what's the best wine but couldn't reach for the top quite yet...