Day 83: Happy birthday to me

Today (19 December) was my birthday, but given our reduced financial situation and general possession-shedding strategy, the whole gift-giving thing was kept to a minimum. Indeed, the day itself was all played very low-key: late breakfast, simple lunch and then a drive up to the golf course to walk Gina, Dorrie's dog, and do my best to stave off my advancing decrepitude with a bit of tobogganing. 

Since our arrival-day blizzard, it has been warm and even rained a bit, so the snow is disappearing rapidly, but there was still plenty on the designated tobogganing slope, which we had all to ourselves. The hillside was mostly in the shade and hadn't really been used since it was groomed, so the first run of the day – mine – was very, very fast. I had forgotten how terrifying tobogganing can be. In order to reduce the risk of broken bones, we moved a bit lower down the slope and spent a fun hour or so careening down the hill with only a modicum of control, and only a few spectacular crashes - all with a spectacular Alpine backdrop.

In the evening, Dorrie very kindly let me open a bottle from her cellar that I've been coveting pretty much since we first started visiting her – a 1964 Chateau Pichon Lalande. And it didn't disappoint. Yes, it was clearly past its peak, but it still had more life than you might expect from a 50-year-old wine.

Differing views

Located in Randogne, below the ski resort of Crans-Montana, my aunt's house has truly jaw-dropping views across and along the Rhone Valley. Many of you will have heard me say that despite having visited her pretty regularly over the past 15 years, I will still turn, catch sight of the view and have to stop to take it all in once more (and, more often than not, reach for my camera and head outside once more). Part of the reason for this is that, thanks to the ever-changing interplay of light, snow, cloud and mountain, the view is never quite the same. Below are a few of my recent attempts to capture some of that spectacular visual diversity.

Day 81: Into the Alps

In the morning, we headed for the row of snow-covered mountains on the horizon – it was time to leave Italy behind and make our way to the only other appointment that we had arranged before we left: Christmas at my aunt's in the Swiss Alps.

At coffee time, we pulled off the motorway at the little village of Quincinetto – so little that we had to drive around it a couple of times before we found the 'centre'. It did have an imposing bell tower and church, and thankfully it also had a quaint cafe/deli that did a good espresso. I was also impressed by the slate roofs on the houses – not nice, neat, thin, regular slivers of stone like you usually see but huge great hunks of rock that must require some significant support beneath. 

We then stopped in another little village for lunch – Etroubles, which sounds like some sort of IT malfunction. By now we had climbed quite a bit higher, and the temperature had dropped significantly, so we were pleased to stumble across a cosy little pizzeria. 

After lunch, we finally got above the snow line as we approached Great St. Bernard Pass (elevation 2,469 metres), the third highest road pass in Switzerland. The road over the pass was closed, but the tunnel, which is celebrating its 50^th birthday this year, was open. It starts out as a sort of 'open tunnel' – there's a concrete roof over the road that's open at the side. We dealt with the border formalities, bought our vignette and then drove into the tunnel itself, where we officially crossed over into Switzerland. 

As we came out into the open air again, there was a very light snow falling, but as we drove down into the Rhone Valley, this turned to quite heavy rain. Sally soon sent us off the motorway and up the mountainside along a very narrow road (we had to stop several times to let other cars pass) through the vineyards. As we approached Randogne, where my aunt, Dorrie, lives, the rain turned back to snow - quite heavy snow - and we breathed a collective sigh of relief that we had shelled out on those winter tyres way back in Abruzzo. 

Although we've been to Dorrie's numerous times, we were approaching from a novel direction this time - and the heavy snow wasn't making navigating any easier - and we took a wrong turn, so we pulled over and called her to get directions. She was out, so as well as giving us directions to the house, she gave us directions as to how to let ourselves in and not long after, we were back on familiar ground again for the first time in months. 

Day 80: Touring Turin

Our hotel in Turin is an unusual place set all on its own in a park on the city's outskirts. This morning, after a very basic breakfast in the room, we hopped into the car and drove into the city centre, eventually finding a place to park near the Mole Antonelliana, more of which later.

A light rain was falling as we walked down to the river and then back into the heart of the city, stopping for a coffee in a small, yet grand cafe – very turn-of-the-last-century. The cafe set the tone for the city itself, which is simultaneously grand and understated, filled with impressive and often very old buildings, enormous piazzas and long colonnaded walkways – yet it also has a slightly dour, workaday feel. There are lots of upmarket shops – we spotted a number of Prada stores, for example – but it somehow doesn't feel in any way ritzy. 

We found an outlet of Eataly – fancy gourmet food stores whose name you can't say out loud without sounding a bit stupid – and pottered around it for a while. Kate and the girls then spent an age wandering around a Christmas shop, packed full of the little build-you-own-nativity modules that are so popular in Italy.

After a pretty uninspiring lunch, we wandered back towards the car, stopping for a while in a really lovely wine shop. A little further on was a cat cafe – a coffee shop with a group of live-in cats – so of course we had to stop in. While the girls got to know the resident felines, I ran the very long way back to the car to put some more money in the meter. 

We then continued our slightly aimless pottering back towards the car, taking in the impressive piazzas and grand buildings. We eventually made it back to the Mole Antonelliana - one of the most impressive buildings in Turin. Named for the architect who designed it, Alessandro Antonelli, it was finished in 1889, at which time it was the tallest brick-built building in the world (167.5 metres). Originally conceived of as a synagogue, it now houses the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, to which the very helpful man who checked us in at the hotel had given us four tickets. 

The museum was cleverly put together, with a great collection of early 'cinematic instruments' – old cameras and the like – and some clever themed sets showing clips from the genres those sets represented (Westerns in a saloon and so on), but to be honest, I'm not sure how much we all got from the exhibits. The space itself, however, was incredible – possibly the tallest indoor area I've ever been in, and we all loved it. There was a walkway running all the way up and around the inside area, with a special Sergio Leone exhibition along it, and when we got to the top, looking over the railing gave us all a touch of vertigo.

On the way home we went looking for a shopping centre but Sally disgraced herself by sending us down one of the strange roads that run parallel to the main roads in Turin and getting us quite spectacularly and stressfully lost.